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The outburst of laughs within the first moments of Oscar Wilde's classic, promised that 'The Importance of Being Earnest' was assured to be amusing. All eight actors and actresses performed the comic story to high standards, the story of two dashing men who are in love with two beautiful young ladies, but all is not how it seems.
As lights appear we see a townhouse set in the late nineteenth century, with a well stated butler plumping his lordship’s cushions. Algernon Moncrieff constantly kept us laughing throughout the performance, the actor playing him grasped his posh, Victorian accent with ease. Sadly there were a couple of incidents where he may have stumbled over his words, but within moments he quickly got the audience laughing again with his witty presence.
Algernon receives a visit from his well dressed, best friend whom he knows to be Earnest Worthing. Only to find that he is really called Jack and only calls himself Earnest when he comes to the city. The chemistry between the two principle characters was amazing, they reacted to each other’s words and you could really see they were also responding to each other’s feelings. You could not have picked two better actors to play the parts.
Although amateurs, all eight of the cast were professionals in the sense of teamwork. If one of them forgot what they were saying, they each helped each other to recover and the mistake was barely noticeable. This performance was well executed and would be great for families with older children and something that they will be talking about for many weeks. Although this performance was not perfect, as sometimes there were a few silences, it was gripping with laughter and an unusual story that the audience seemed to enjoy.
Nathan Kelly
Great Cornard Upper School
2nd September 2010
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