Review Roundup: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at the National Theatre

The National Theatre is presenting Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest. Reimagined by director Max Webster (Donmar’s Macbeth, Life of Pi) in his highly anticipated NT debut, the production will run in the Lyttelton theatre until 25 January 2025 and release to cinemas worldwide from 20 February 2025 presented by National Theatre Live.

The cast includes Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, Julian Bleach, Shereener Browne, Richard Cant, Sharon D Clarke, Ncuti Gatwa, Jasmine Kerr, Amanda Lawrence, Gillian McCafferty, Elliot Pritchard, Eliza Scanlen, Hugh Skinner and John Vernon.

While assuming the role of a dutiful guardian in the country, Jack (Hugh Skinner) lets loose in town under a false identity. Meanwhile, his friend Algy (Ncuti Gatwa) adopts a similar facade. Hoping to impress two eligible ladies, the gentlemen find themselves caught in a web of lies they must carefully navigate. See what the critics are saying...

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Cindy Marcolina, BroadwayWorld: Gatwa is a brilliant Algernon, deliciously flippant in his exchanges and suitably hilarious in his subterfuge. He establishes a mesmerising relationship with Hugh Skinner’s Jack Worthing, who balances ditziness and pragmatic shiftiness at once. They delectate in the push and pull of Wilde’s wit, with Gatwa ultimately acting as bait for much of Skinner’s stunts and escapades. He’s a blithe devil on our shoulder, breaking the ultra-thin fourth wall, egging us on. The Doctor gets Wild(e) but Sharon D Clarke (hand)bags it. She is the heart and soul of the production.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: The pace never becoming hectic, the physical comedy steers clear of farce and lines are crisply delivered without hamming up. Wilde’s polished oxymorons and inverted wisdom (divorce is a pleasure, wives who flirt with husbands are distasteful etc) can sound relentlessly glib, but here they retain their satirical celebration of shallowness. Not even a technical glitch in the preview performance I attended could spoil the fun. With its dazzle, joy and original anarchic spirit of pantomime, this is the most stylish festive show in town.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: There’s some straining after laughter, albeit it is often obtained; I enjoyed Julian Bleach’s two scene-stealing servants, Amanda Lawrence’s affectedly eccentric Miss Prism and Richard Cant’s sly, peculiar Reverend Chasuble. But the main plaudits should go to Sharon D Clarke’s sedate, imperious, fabulously attired Lady Bracknell, with an incongruous Caribbean lilt and exactly the right kind of off-hand, understated delivery (half-growling “A handbag?”). She enables Wilde’s imperishable stock of convention-flipping epigrams to detonate and be answered with peals of laughter.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: The Importance of Being Earnest wouldn't be The Importance of Being Earnest were it not on some level closeted. But what Webster has done here is create a veritable Narnia of a closet, a fantasy world as dazzlingly Technicolor as Judy Garland’s Oz. Why would anyone trade a closet this glorious for the painful grit of real life?

Nick Curtis, London Evening Standard: There are references to Miley Cyrus and James Blunt, one “sh*t” and one “f**ksake!” There’s also a knowingness to it all, from the handbag suspended over the opening curtain to actors acknowledging their dialogue is covering a scene change. I’ve seen radical reinventions of this play that didn’t work. This one does. It’s great to see Ncuti Gatwa in it. But greater still to see a talented wider cast tearing up and reassembling Wilde.

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