The Importance of Being Oscar by Micheal Mac Liammoir. Jermyn Street theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 until 19 April 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner.

The Importance of Being Oscar by Micheal Mac Liammoir.  Jermyn Street theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 until 19 April 2025,

4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“A perfect evening.”

Alastair Whatley and director Michael Fentiman have taken the play created some sixty years ago by Micheal Mac Liammoir and transformed it into an account of the rise and fall of Oscar Wilde in its own right rather than as it originally was – a showcase for MacLiammoir's dazzling talents. Whatley wearing a rather dashing orange corduroy suit delilvers an impeccable performance, performing extracts from the plays, passages from Wilde's letters and those of his friends, poems he wrote which take us through his rise and fall. Some is familiar, some is not. There are highlights – Oscar in the United States, Lady Bracknell's handbag speech – watch where he get the laugh as it is not where Dame Edith immortalised the moment – and The Ballad of Reading Goal as well as some his correspondence with Robert Ross,  the one friend who kept giving him the good advice he always ignored. It is uses his poems and his writings as a critic to effect and escapes all the traps into which monologues wrongly staged can fall. The production was staged last year at Reading Rep and its arrival at Jermyn Street is indeed deserved. Wilde on wallpaper is on revelation for a start. Mac Liamoir too is done full justice as a playwright. It is an evening of delights, some familiar, some completely new.

Cast

Alastair Whatley

Creatives

Director Michael Fentiman

Set & Costume Designer – Madeleine Girling

Lighting Designer – Chris Davey

Sound Designer – Barnaby Race