THE SEASON BEGINS!
Not doing formal mouse-rate reviews of these, but for local eyes and visitors it’s worth nipping through the ones I can get to – this one is around all week, before moving on to Southwold and I can report that director Charlotte Parry and cast do old Oscar proud. Respectfully, and Mark Sterling’s design is beautiful, economical and sleek as Wilde would want.
The only eyebrow-raiser is, I suppose, the genderswitch of the manservants, Lane in the city and Merriman in the country: Megan Sharman plays both as a Sloaniely elegant, if slightly improbable, female senior servant in 1920s cocktail-trousers . Fair enough , Algernon might have been a trendsetter. And it’s the only improbability: everyone else is just-so.The young quartet are fun all the way, hugely active (the physical direction is splendid, mobile and free and funny: some productions are so overwhelmed byt he language they never remember how young these larky creatures are).
Will Howard’s Algernon is fast-moving and slick, Joe McArdle the slightly slower Worthing (especially when attempting dignity), Kate Hunter beautifully upmarket as Gwendolen and Charlie Cameron edibly sweet and huge-eyed as Cecily. The elders, Michael Shaw’s senatorial Chasuble and Annie Miles Prism, are what they should be.
But you need to know about Lady Bracknell? Naturally. As an experienced Bracknell-watcher for some sixty years I can assure you that Nicola Sanderson is just what you want: an immense presence, dour in determination, implacable in authority, a walking monolith of wealth and hauteur. And when it comes to “a handbag!” she avoids the traditional Edith Evans roar, just murmurs it amazedly, and keeps the shocked fury quietly seething until moments later it erupts in a cry of THE LINE IS IMMATERIAL!
Just what you need. It’s a lovely evening, two sharp hours with interval, and it’ll be nice to see McArdle again next in Show and Tell…
all bookings www.act.co.uk and 01728 343344
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