The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most enduring play and there have been many previous performances to judge this adaptation against. The story of Algernon and Jack, or Algy and Jamil as they are here, living double lives has long captivated audiences and Yasmeen Khan’s script and Mina Anwar’s direction do ample justice to the original with a performance that manages to be as bitingly satirical as the original without ever being didactic.

The play is set in “a posh bit of the north” and Holly Pigott’s design creates the look of a classic 1990s studio sitcom. This stylistic choice, augmented with a truly engaging score, works well with the comedy – a laugh track would not have been out of place. Khan’s script is modern and the references to Instagram, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Peaky Blinders work well.

The script allows the actors to shine. Gurjeet Singh as Jamil delivers a superb performance, full of insecurity, angst and bravado – a young man trying to work out his identity in real time. His relationship with the confident, frantic, aloof and wonderful Gul, played by the talented Nikki Patel, is a delight. Their chemistry feels fresh and real.

Tom Dixon is well-cast as Algy, playing a smug and unlikeable actor with delusions of grandeur who slowly realises the best things in life require honesty and less pretence. Algy’s transformation is largely the result of his almost instantaneous infatuation with Safina, Jamil’s “sister, auntie, nephew”, played by the engaging Zoe Iqbal.

The couples are ably supported by the rest of the cast. Harriet Thorpe is theatre agent Alison, of company Alison, Alison, Alison and Alison – a troublingly accurate portrayal. Paul Chahidi steals every scene as international film director Steve Merriman and Anwar is formidable as Ms Begum.

The success of the satire is in its subtlety. When Sindhu Vee’s television presenter Libby frustratedly mutters: “And I am a qualified journalist” after her co-presenter makes a fool of himself, she evokes the frustrations of many. Similarly, Jamil’s conversation with Merriman and the topic of “the ‘ills” amusingly skewers southern attitudes about the north.

The trick of this show is that it moves along at such a pace that these jabs can be made without fear of being dragged into the discourses that surround them. This is a play based on the work of an Irish man, written and directed by British Asian women from the north, set in Huddersfield with a diverse cast, and it is a delight.