Oscar Wilde classic plays open air-stage in Brighton

Directing the show is Ben Poole: “When the company chose the play, you find yourself wondering has it had its day and what is in it for a modern audience but as soon as you start reading it with the actors it just starts to reveal that there is just so much in there that is still of huge relevance. It's delightful and it's funny and it's an exploration of love and identity and what society expects of us, but there's also just so much in there that you have to discover that is absolutely timeless for whenever you are doing it. Both Algernon and Jack in the play enjoy having these other characters that they have created and they take great delight in it and I think there is something very contemporary about that. It's still very witty. You find you want to shake the characters and say ‘Don't say that! Speak the truth!’ But if you did, the play would only last a couple of minutes! The characters enjoy the complications they make for themselves!

Oscar Wilde’s finest and most eccentric romantic comedy features a cast of unforgettable and larger-than-life characters, the delightful Cecily, the roguish Algernon, and the formidable Lady Bracknell among them in a hilarious tale of double lives and mistaken identities.

Subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, it follows two bachelors, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, each of whom are attempting to win the hearts of young women who claim to be capable of loving only men named Ernest. When both Jack and Algernon assume alter-egos of that name, the lies start to spiral out of control and they struggle to keep their stories straight and their paths uncrossed. What unfolds is a raucous tale of deception, disguise and misadventure, all swept towards an explosive conclusion…

“It is hard work in some ways to work out what Wilde is saying about these characters because a lot of their behaviour is quite absurd and I suppose you assume that he is satirising the whole of upper-class society and its ridiculous contradictions and double standards but there are also code words and other things that you can read into it that perhaps hint at Wilde’s own secret double life.

“As a director you always want to work on a show where you feel you can bring your own take to things but I think with this one you have to remember that everything you need is in the play and whatever you add mustn't get in the way of the play. I do think it's very hard to veer away from a very traditional production. I'm sure you could do a modern interpretation of The Importance of Being Earnest but I think I would wonder what the value would be. It is all there and my view is that the playwright is God and you don't get in the way of his genius. When we were working on it, I would find myself being drawn in and almost forgetting that I was there to direct it and just wanting to follow it. I think with Wilde you are always just trying to keep up with him.”

Tickets from www.brightonopenairtheatre.co.uk.

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