Reviews

“Line by line, Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece is so familiar that you can almost hear the audience mouthing along to some of the speeches. Yet there is a reverent hush before Margaret Preece, as Lady Bracknell, delivers the play’s most famous line. Will she opt for the time-honoured Edith Evans method of enunciating all nine syllables in the word “handbag” or, as it transpires, something more understated but just as devastating? Preece gives the standout performance in Richard Baron’s polished production, displaying a remarkable facility for the verbiage while offering rare flashes of playful humour beneath the role of the imperious matriarch who can reduce adversaries to jelly with a gimlet look. The cheeky innovation of this production is that Lady Bracknell is fully complicit in John Worthing’s (Reece Richardson) mild deception of the doting Gwendolen (Emma Odell). When Preece turns and winks at the audience, we sense the rich interior life beneath the whalebone and stiff skirts. ……. Wilde’s deeply serious confection is played out against the backdrop of Ken Harrison’s elegantly detailed scenery designs, which are chewed with relish by Preece and the other members of the ensemble”