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If witty epigrams, society balls and a little light music is your idea of fun, you should go right away to see Oscar Wilde's first great runaway success (and argument for being both modern and trivial), Lady Windermere's Fan. Unsurprisingly, given that the Oxford University Oscar Wilde Society is putting on the show, the presentation is straightforward, respectful and faithful to the period (with some very pretty dresses on the women), though the sparse staging, cheap props and close ages of the actors occasionally drift into persistent reminders of the provenance of the production. The pleasing live music, written and performed for the show, is a delightfully special touch, and the moment Faye Dayan - marvellous as the cruelly catty Duchess of Berwick - sweeps onto the stage, the play hits its stride. The plot is quite slight; Lady Windermere (Lucy Tulloch) suspects her husband of infidelity, agonises, is almost persuaded to leave him, and is then convinced to return and thereby saved from social disgrace by the very woman she had considered a rival. More unexpectedly, there are enough dramatic confessions and wild revelations to satisfy the most ardent soap opera fan, as well as some quite unpalatable (to the modern mind) moral decisions. But none of this really matters, as the genius is in the details; Daniel Dolley as Mr Dumby, brimming with drink and natural wisdom, Polly Godwin, silently hilarious as the mawkish Lady Agatha Carlisle, Julia Charnock, grandly bitchy and brutally cynical (Lady Plymdale) and an immaculately dressed and phrase-perfect Tom Carson as Mr Cecil Graham. Ferdinand Koenig is particularly funny as Lord Augustus Lorton, perfect straight man to the brilliant and brazen Mrs Erlynn, an overwhelmingly charming Elizabeth Gray. But the real star is the writing itself, which is in turns cynical, sentimental, monstrous, delightful, and side-splittingly funny. Jeremy Dennis, 4.3.3 |
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