An Ideal Husband

An ideal husband, a title as intriguing and mischievous as to its nature, promises to be not all as it seems, playing with the possibility of humour romance, excitement, or tragedy, all of which are the foundations of good theatre. However, sat in the circle of the Malvern theatre, which I highly doubt hindered my experience of the play, from behind the huge red velvet curtains; I found the play to be unexciting and mundane. This may be due to the minimal three set changes of a two hours play, hosting four acts. Or even due to the long and over extended speeches each character bored me with. However, I feel I must give justice to the amazing way the actors remembered all of their complicated and antiquated writing, with few fumbles which were cleverly disguised. Also to the way in which they portrayed their characters social backgrounds and authority, through voice, posture, movement and costume. For example, the first scene of the first act introduced most of the characters, held together by a grand hall setting and backdrop. Ladies in a warm cream colour, and beautifully plain dresses, men in black and white morning suits, this to show the immense contrast between the minimal characters and the less so. Swiftly after, lady Cheevly entered- a European entrepreneur, in outstanding vibrancy and a dress oozing in social style and importance, dripping in diamonds. I found this to be exciting and intriguing as to its purpose. Along with this, throughout the play, the audience were tickled by the light humour which stumbled, rather than flowed through the plot. However, this was not enough for me to come away feeling fulfilled to have spent money. The plot was dry and flat, this I doubt was to do with Wild’s writing, but rather the way in which the actors or director portrayed it. One of few things I did like about the performance was when coming away from the theatre; I was filled with thought of the lesson taught. There was a lesson which prowled its way through the obvious twists and turns of the plot, that things will always come back to haunt you if they are of a immoral or untruthful nature. Therefore a play highly anticipated due to its writer, concerning wealth, social difference, truth, consequence, education, ambition, weakness, temptation and much more craved desperately for much needed sparkle.

Sarah Yapp, Hereford

An absolute triumph! Performed in the true spirit that made Wilde one of the greatest playwrites of all time.

James Williams, Oxford

On receiving the information that I was going to see an Oscar Wilde play, I could hardly contain my excitement. Having already known a lot about ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ I was expecting glitz, glamour, scandal and passion. How did ‘An Ideal Husband’ compare? It was just dry. I suppose I’m being a bit harsh, but the first three acts really did leave a lot to be desired, with the sets, acting and direction just being dull. However, I was just saved from falling asleep by the wonderful costumes, with most of the ladies in white and cream dresses with stunning lace work to show they were upper class. The pale colours set up a fantastic contrast with Mrs Cheveley’s and Mrs Markham’s bright and dark colours showing their own shrewdness and allegiance. When compared with the costumes, the set is the complete opposite, with the only colour being used a dirty, pale brown: it left me wondering whether the characters were as well off as they were made out to be. Where was the gold, the gilt and the sparkle? The acting was also…okay. Only two actors stood out: Robert Duncan who played Lord Goring and Kate O’Mara who played Mrs Cheveley. Why did they stand out? They were the only actors who included the audience, apart from that, I felt like a third- wheel, who wasn’t wanted there. However, the actress who played Lady Chiltern added lots of passion to the piece at the end of the second scene, which made up for the lack of expression from Michael Praed. His diction was perfect, but there was such a lack of emotion, I just couldn’t connect and sympathise with him. However, his profile was just right for his character, and he did very well with his long speeches. Despite the dry acting, the actual story line had a little glimmer of a spectacular play, if only the director had used the witty lines to their full potential. Instead the actors were just directed to stand or sit on the stage for their speeches, and there was no use for the huge space on stage. I have searched for a reason for this, but can only think of bad directing. However, the director did manage to get some farce in the last couple of scenes which finally added some humour and sparkle to the performance. This marked a big turning point, and from then on the play managed to ‘up-the-anti’. But after I had got over the shock of the play having a good finale, it was over, and it was time to leave the circle seating. All in all, the play was something I would rather forget, and the good points seem to escape into the distance when compared with the bad. It was a big diasappointment.

A non, Malvern