Tag Archives: The Importance of Being Earnest

Drawing: Michele Dotrice in The Importance of Being Earnest

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michele dotrice

I had the good fortune to walk on the (Oscar) Wilde side on Saturday after detouring from The Elephant Man across to Covent Garden to the Vaudeville Theatre’s stage door on my post-matinee meandering, where The Importance of Being Earnest is currently playing. I was after a romantic, repressed spinster in love with a village preacher – Miss Laetitia Prism…well not the character, but the actress playing  Mr. W’s parody for ‘a woman with a past’, the delightful Michele Dotrice. As Alexandra Coghlan wrote in The Arts Desk, “The unexpected heroes of the night are Michele Dotrice and Richard O’Callaghan as ageing lovers Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble. Quivering with girlish passion, Dotrice balances comedy with a startling pathos in her ‘female of repellent aspect’.”

Michele has a long and distinguished stage career, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of sixteen, but she is probably known more to global audiences as Betty,the long-suffering wife of ‘Oh Frank!’ Spencer (Michael Crawford) in the BBC series Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. Forty years on the show still attracts tens of thousands of hits each day on YouTube.

Michele left her character on the stage and slipped out the door to have a bite to eat before going back for a sold-out evening performance. With a line from Miss Prism’s dialogue in mind, “I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moments notice”, I disrupted her journey and asked if she could sign my sketch, which she did ‘with pleasure’ and my trusty black Pentel fine point pen. She must have had that same line in her mind, using the ‘good’ word, for the drawing, not necessarily the drawer.

 

Drawing: David Suchet as Lady Bracknell

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David Suchet

One of Britain’s most revered actors plays one of theatre’s most iconic roles with David Suchet starring as Lady bracknell in Oscar Wild’s timeless and popular comedy of errors THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

After a short UK tour the production, directed by Adrian Noble settled in to the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End late last month for a five-month residency.

While known for his TV roles, especially as Agatha Christie’s fastidious detective Hercule Poirot, he is no stranger to treading the boards and has been nominated for no less than seven prestigious Olivier Awards and a Tony for his Broadway portrayal of Salieri in AMADEUS.

The man most famed for his pencil moustache and distinctly male attire is now decked out as a very Victorian lady. The formidable, biting character of Lady Augusta Bracknell represents Wilde’s opinion on Victorian upper-class negativity-conservative, repressive, powerful and arrogant. Famous ‘Lady Bracknells’ have included Dame Judi Dench and Penelope Keith, but in the past few years the role has also been played by men. Geoffrey Rush in Australia and Brian Bedford in Stratford, Ontario and Broadway. “I’m trying to become the best woman I can”, said David in a recent interview, although “the character almost defies gender really”.

The Guardian critic Michael Billington called David’s performance “majestically funny” and said “As Lady Bracknell, Suchet does not so much enter a room as occupy it totally”.

There’s a large poster of David as Lady B outside the Vaudeville’s stage door, where many gather after each show. I joined them after last Saturday’s evening performance. It’s on a busy thoroughfare with lots of traffic-vechicles and pedestrians. Many passing by would comment on the poster, ‘oh there’s what’s his face…Poirot!” He’s still recognisable even in a drag. David is the nicest man (and woman) you could ever wish to meet. He doesn’t come to the stage door, but remains in the foyer area and you are invited in to meet him, take selfies, get sigs and have a brief chat. He loved this sketch and as usual was more than happy to sign it.

Drawing: Cherie Lunghi in The Importance of Being Earnest

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cherie lunghi

British actress Cherie Lunghi is currently appearing in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End. In one of her biographical blurbs, Cherie was described as a ‘leading ingénue’ at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 70s. An ingénue is a stock character, typically beautiful, gentle, sweet, virginal and often naive – the usual foil to a vamp or a femme fatale. Her roles at the RSC included Perdita, Cordelia and Viola.

She then left to play Guinevere (probably more of a vamp) in John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) and pursue a film and TV career.

At the Pinter she plays the conventional Victorian woman, Gwendolen Fairfax – Lady Bracknell’s sophisticated, intellectual, cosmopolitan and utterly pretentious daughter who is in love with Wilde’s protagonist, Jack, whom she knows as Earnest. It’s a name she is fixated upon and will not marry a man without that moniker that “inspires absolute confidence”. Ingénue or vamp? Or maybe a mixture of both. Either way, in real life she was most fun to meet and chatted with a handful of us at the stage door before Saturday’s matinée. I told her that sketching was one of my vices, and she said “it’s a vice you’re good at”.

Drawing: Sian Phillips in The Importance of Being Earnest at The Harold Pinter Theatre

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Sian Philips

The ageless Siân Phillips made her Shakespeare Theatre Company debut as Oscar Wilde’s ‘dragon of propriety’ in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Lansburgh Theatre in Washington this year. It’s a role she is currently playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End. Well, in reality she plays a member of the amateur Burbury Company of Players rehearsing the role of Lady Bracknell.

She made her first appearance on the London stage in 1957 as a student, appearing in Hermann Sudermann’s Magda for RADA to critical acclaim. It provided the launching pad for her long and distinguished career, which has included Oliver and Tony nominations and a TV BAFTA win for Best Actress in I Claudius and How Green Was My Valley.

In his review for the Express, Neil Norman states, “Phillips is one of the Lady Bracknells I have ever seen, skirting caricature without embracing it, she encapsulates the low venality of the high born.

I based the drawing on one of Scott Suchman’s numerous publicity stills for the Washington Production. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of Siân’s favourite shots.

“Oh, that’s from that bad photo of me.” I picked it because of the ‘expression’ which I though really captured the character – my explanation offered in mitigation and hope. But she was good humoured about it and signed and dedicated it for me on her way into last Saturday’s matinée.

Drawing: Nigel Havers in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Harold Pinter Theatre

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Nigel Havers

The quintessential English charmer, Nigel Havers is 62, and returns to a role he played at 26 in Oscar Wilde’s classic farce The Importance of Being Earnest at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. Wilde’s masterpiece has some additional material added by Simon Brett as a framing device to enable older actors to play younger roles.

Nigel originally player Algernon Moncrieff in Peter Hall’s 1982 production at the National alongside Martin Jarvis, who also reprises his role as Jack Worthing.

The latest re-imagining revolves around The Bunbury Company of Players, an amateur troupe of veteran thesps performing a dress rehearsal. In one of the added lines, someone suggests that the ageing roué is not really an actor, Nigel’s character quips, “that’s true of so many who make a living at it.” And he has made a good fist of it over a 30 year career playing smoothies, gentlemen and cads, in such films as A Passage to India, Empire of the Sun and Chariots of Fire, plus a string of small screen roles – his latest being the charismatic con-artist Lewis Archer in Corrie.

Nigel is always on the go. On the number of occasions our paths have crossed he has definitely taken the fast lane. But, he always has time to sign. Just as well he has a swift siggy to complement his famous charm.