An Ideal Husband

With Lindsay Posner’s strongly cast, sumptuous revival of this thriller of corruption at Westminster, Oscar Wilde’s political comedy enjoys a fresh burst of life and contemporary relevance.

Principal agent of change is Elliot Cowan’s influential Lord Goring, the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought, in this portrayal no mere camp follower but a muscular Mr Fixit, who saves his fashion notes for his impassive valet played by Max Digby.

Springy and spare, discovering clever comic business in his interactions with his father, Charles Kay, he devotes all his energy to saving his friends the Chilterns from disgrace and ruin and is happily rewarded with the hand of Fiona Button’s chirpy Mabel, their first chaste kiss winning a delighted ‘Aah!’ from a sentimental audience.

Perhaps first night nerves chilled the Chilterns’ opening soiree, few witty exchanges scoring the expected chuckles. It was left to veteran Caroline Blakiston to give a masterclass in delivering Wildean wit, a sustained critique on men and marriage that won her a well deserved personal round.

Alexander Hanson as Sir Robert Chiltern, a Tory minister whose priggish political image is about to be sullied by a youthful guilty secret, is idolised by his wife, Rachael Stirling, both difficult roles to infuse with real emotion. Happily they are here played not with stiff composure, but with love, passion and anger as the turmoil of events allows them at last to make a bonfire of their vanities and their illusory ideals.

Performance of the evening and perhaps of her career, comes from Samantha Bond as the glamorous but wicked Mrs Cheveley floating through these gilded salons in cutaway silk gowns, standing her ground with the strongest of opponents with a resolute sureness that might suggest a Shavian heroine rather than Wilde’s society manipulator. Indeed, so appealing is her style that one could almost hope she might succeed with her womanly wiles.

Designer Stephen Brimson Lewis has created four handsome settings, but the outstanding costume is Ms Bond’s third act cloak, a Beardsley-inspired Yellow Book creation that should eventually find a place in the theatre collections at the V&A but meanwhile is a real West End eyeful.