UK News: All-male Importance of Being Earnest to open in Bristol

the importance of being earnest 

by Oscar Wilde

29 april – 28 may

 

director/designer david fielding   

lighting   Adam Silverman

costumes   stevie stewart

composer   Gary Yershon

sound   Jason Barnes

 

cast  joseph chance, daniel hill, Michael Fitzgerald, james frost, robert goodale, 

 phil nice, christopher staines, simon trinder

 

press night   wednesday 4 may at 7.30pm

 

 

wilde night out with all-male earnest

 

Bristol Old Vic presents an all male production of Oscar Wilde's fresh and funny comedy of manners,

The Importance of Being Earnest. A surreal and irreverent version of one of the greatest comedies in the English language, The Importance of Being Earnest will be directed and designed by David Fielding.

 

Jack and Algernon are great friends and consummate liars. Jack calls himself Ernest in town so that his London activities remain secret from his ward Cecily. As Jack pursues Algernon's cousin Gwendoline, Algy pursues Cecily.

A happy outcome depends upon Lady Bracknell's investigations into the whereabouts of a handbag and the question of who is really being earnest.

 

Fizzing with wit and verbal mischief, Oscar Wilde's play about love, secret lives and deception was his last staged before his imprisonment for homosexuality. It reflects Wilde's own belief in the falseness of middle-class values and pokes fun at Victorian morality and the need for social disguise. The all-male cast allows David Fielding to explore the raunchier subtext of Wilde's "trivial comedy for serious people".

 

The Importance of Being Earnest will be Fielding's directorial debut for Bristol Old Vic. As well as his legendary Xerxes for ENO, he has worked for Garsington and The Grange opera companies, designed tours for The Pet Shop Boys and productions at The National Theatre and RSC. He has also designed Bristol Old Vic's current production, The Turn of The Screw. He is considered to be one of the most distinguished and exciting director-designers of his generation.  

 

The formidable Lady Bracknell is played by Michael Fitzgerald who recently appeared in Beckett at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. He has twice played Oscar Wilde, on film and in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love at The National Theatre. Other theatre includes Twelfth Night and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (both Young Vic) and Richard III (RSC). Miss Prism is played by Daniel Hill, a familiar face on television in series such as Judge John Deed, My Family and is well known for his role as Harvey Baines in Waiting for God. Christopher Staines returns to Bristol Old Vic as Jack Worthing after appearing in the hugely successful Paradise Lost and The Comedy of Errors, while Algernon is played by James Frost, best known as Dr. Callum Parker in the C4 series No Angels. The cast is completed by Joseph Chance as Cecily and Simon Trinder as Gwendoline, both hot from their success in the RSC's Spanish Golden Age Season, Phil Nice as Rev. Chasuble and Robert Goodale as Lane /Merriman.

 

Costume designer Stevie Stewart regularly costumes tours for Kylie Minogue, most recently, the tour Showgirl. Her recent theatre collaborations include Dance Rambert, Michael Clark Dance Company and Graeae Theatre Company's production Mother Courage and Her Children. Composer Gary Yershon, lighting designer Adam Silverman and sound designer Jason Barnes complete the creative team.