The Importance of Being Earnest

Posted on 2008/04/05 09:13:40 (April 2008).

[Wednesday 2nd April]
So, inline with my new financial year's resolution established yesterday, I got straight on to booking us theatre tickets. I had noticed that The Importance of Being Earnest was on at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand as we just happened to be walking past at some point. Having seen te film Wilde, and been entertained by many of his famous quotes which seem to pop up all over the place, I was quite convinced Wilde was my sort of cup of tea, but it occurred to me I had never actually seen any of his plays. So this seemed to be a perfect opportunity.

I had got us the cheapest seats I could find (I am ashamed at my uncharacteristic stinginess here, but given that the cheapest seats were £22 and the next ones up appeared to be over £40 I hope I may be forgiven), and yet was pleasantly surprised to find we were right on the front row. So we very close and I had plenty of legroom - I couldn't really discern how paying an extra £20 each would have got us anything better than that.

Anyhow, the rather banal topic of money aside, I was a little unsure how I would take to the play itself. I am always nervous about any sort of live performance - once you sit down you're sort of stuck there, if it really stinks you can't really just get up and leave.

Luckily those fears were unfounded, and I found it very entertaining right from the start. The sets and costumes were all very nicely done, and there was a charming level of upper class foppishness which pervaded through all the actors. Probably only a few bits were laugh out loud funny - obviously a certain amount of the humour had been lost over time - but I had a big smile on my face the whole way through.

Chie seemed to rather enjoy it too, and so there's a definite tick in the box there for week 1 of the new financial year's resolution agenda.

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