As the curtain rises on Ncuti Gatwa sporting flamboyant pink frock, white bloomers and nut crushing pecs, dancing libidinously with the ensemble, caressing each regardless of age or gender you wonder – is this what Oscar Wilde intended?
Well yes, almost certainly. His queer ode to double lives and secret assignations, with nods to silver cigarette cases (his gift to male lovers) and the Savoy Hotel (where he spent stolen nights) has been played straight, mocked, subverted and reinterpreted.
This production plunders the desire in every carefully honed line: when Gwendolen (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́), Cecily (Eliza Scanlan) and Ncuti’s Algy writhe with Hugh Skinner’s Jack on the chaise longue, he cries “I’m so dazed I don’t know who I’m kissing.”
Victorian repression explodes in a riot of youth, dance and colour – although, as ever, Sharon Clarke’s Lady Bracknell steals it. The show’s triumph is a beleaguered victory in a darkening world but a victory all the same.
