STANDING to one side of Nick Sargent's Act 1 set for Oscar Wilde's
comedy of deceit, there is a classical statue of a male nude with its
genitals prominent and a cocked hat on its head. A fig leaf is amusingly
drafted in for scenes of greater decorum, but for all Wilde's sexual
ambiguity, the cocked hat makes as pertinent a comment on the
playwright's world view.
For while his characters are invariably drawn from a privileged elite,
there is an ever present sense of subversion in his writing. Of course
he has his cucumber sandwiches and eats them -- he revels in the
decadence of the idle rich even while he is satirising the shallow
emotions of this ''age of surfaces''. Likewise the audience laughs as
much with as at his cynical and emotionally distant characters. And the
larger than life they are the better.
Here Victoria Hardcastle is the largest of the large; decked out in
costumes that keep her narrowly on the tasteful side of pantomime dame,
she plays Lady Bracknell like an ice maiden, her steely gaze appearing
to strike every member of the audience directly in the eye.
Apart from Kern Falconer's unexpectedly funny minister, the other
actors still have room to grow into their parts. James Telfer's Algernon
has an endearing live-for-the-moment foppishness playing opposite Hugh
Simon's fall guy, Jack, for example, but both are a little too polite to
draw fully on the play's undercutting energy.
The show, directed by Richard Baron, is still confident and amusing,
but I suspect it will really ignite when it transfers to Edinburgh's
Royal Lyceum in June, where a bigger auditorium will encourage bolder,
funnier performances.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article