Brighton’s New Venture Theatre

Wit, romance, mistaken identities and one of theatre’s most formidable matriarchs come to Brighton’s New Venture Theatre this November in a new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

More than 130 years after it was first performed, Wilde’s best-known comedy has lost none of its bite for director Ayshen Irfan, a lifelong Oscar Wilde enthusiast.

Part of the enduring appeal of the play lies in Wilde’s ability to make audiences laugh while quietly turning the joke back on them. In an age saturated with opinion and commentary, she believes there is something refreshing about the subtlety and playfulness of Wilde’s satire.

“I just think he does wit like no one else does,” says Irfan. “People didn’t even know they were being mocked – they were laughing at themselves. That’s such a skill, and I think it’s an art that we’ve lost a little bit.”

Her production will embrace the comedy and campness of Earnest while finding the recognisable human beings beneath its larger-than-life characters. It will also pay homage to Wilde himself, with the creative team exploring subtle visual references to his other work including The Picture of Dorian Gray.

That subversive spirit extends to the casting of Lady Bracknell, with performers of all genders invited to audition for the role and Jeremy Crow cast as Wilde’s formidable matriarch.

“Theatre is inherently subversive, and one of the ways it has always been subversive is through gender,” says Irfan. “It is a camp play and it has a lot of queer undertones so playing into those twists and turns of gender felt really important.”

But audiences shouldn’t expect Earnest to be transported into the present day. Instead, Irfan wants to take them wholeheartedly into Wilde’s world and give them the same sense of fun and escapism the play offered its first audiences.

“I want people to leave feeling joyous,” she says. “I want it to feel like you’re being taken back in time. I want people to be laughing like the Victorians laughed.”

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, directed by Ayshen Irfan, runs at New Venture Theatre, Bedford Place, Brighton from November 6-14. The production will be staged in the Theatre Upstairs, which is accessed via two flights of stairs.

Tickets at www.newventure.org.uk.

Cast: Jack – Jon Cottrell; Algernon – Bertie Purchese; Cecily – Joanna Joy Salter; Gwendolen – Izzy Boreham; Dr Chasuble – Ben Pritchard; Lady Bracknell – Jeremy Crow; Miss Prism – Sarah Donnelly; and Lane/Merriman – Paul Trudgian.