An Ideal Husband theatre review: Oscar Wilde needs a lighter touch

3 / 5 stars
An Ideal Husband

OSCAR WILDE'S masterpiece about political chicanery, fraud, blackmail and the hypocrisy of public figures retains an alarming currency.

Laura Rogers and Patricia Routledge  in An Ideal HusbandCATHERINE ASHMORE

Laura Rogers (Lady Chiltern) and Patricia Routledge (Lady Markby) in An Ideal Husband.

The debate about the relative merits of wealth, power, love and honesty is sewn into a work that runs like an intricately plotted noir thriller with a fine coating of wit.

Rachel Kavanaugh's production is a handsomely attired affair – the lofty elegance of the Chilterns' home and the souk–like decadence of Lord Goring's apartments beautifully designed by Simon Higlett.

And the costumes are to die for. But for much of the time I was wondering where the drama was.

For it is a drama. Rising politician Sir Robert Chiltern (Robert Bathurst) is threatened with ruin by poisonous blackmailer Mrs Cheveley (Jemma Redgrave) who has "inherited" a letter incriminating him in a youthful fraudulent transaction that made his fortune.

"Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past," she purrs. "No man is." Beware the woman with a past from the past.

But, oh dear. What happened to the delivery? The first act seems interminable with almost every actor leaning on their lines so heavily they cease to seem amusing and become leaden, over–freighted.

With almost every actor leaning on their lines so heavily they cease to seem amusing

And the worst offender here is, I am sorry to say, Jemma Redgrave who is woefully miscast.

With her sunny smile and sweet English looks she might have been effective anti–typecasting as the conniving, immoral and brilliant Mrs Cheveley but her lowered voice and heavily sedated enunciation unfortunately stalls the thing whenever she appears.

In the early stages it seems to infect everyone with the honourable exceptions of Patricia Routledge and Edward Fox whose impeccable comic timing raises the spirits.

And the greater the speed and lightness of delivery the more effective the drama.

As the Wildean surrogate Lord Goring, Jamie Glover gains confidence after a leaden first act and lodges himself in the heart of the production.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance," is just one of the epigrams that fly off the stage.

And with a nice irony Bathurst's Sir Robert grows in stature as his weaknesses are increasingly exposed, trapped between his virtuous wife (Laura Rogers) and the infernal Mrs Cheveley.

"One must have wealth at all costs," declares Chiltern with the certainty of the truly desperate.

It is a cry whose hollowness is regrettably still heard in our modern times.

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