David Suchet to star as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's masterpiece
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
DAVID Suchet will star as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s much loved and exhilarating masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. Directed by Adrian Noble, the new production runs at the Vaudeville Theatre from June 24 to November 7, 2015.
Written shortly before Wilde fell foul of society’s unbending condemnation, The Importance of Being Earnest fizzes with wit as he delights in debunking social pretensions.
Two bachelor friends, upper crust dandy Algernon Moncrieff and the most reliable John Worthing J.P., lead double lives to court the attentions of the desirable Gwendolyn Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. The gallants must then grapple with the uproarious consequences of their ruse, and with the formidable Lady Bracknell.
The cast also includes Emily Barber as Gwendolen Fairfax, Michael Benz as John (Jack) Worthing, Philip Cumbus as Algernon Moncrieff, Imogen Doel as Cecily Cardew, Michele Dotrice as Miss Prism and Richard O’Callaghan as Reverend Canon Chasuble.
One of Britain’s most respected actors on stage, screen and television, David Suchet was awarded the CBE in 2010. Although probably best known on television for his role as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s Poirot, he has also appeared on the small screen in Great Expectations, Richard II, Hidden, Diverted, the award-winning BBC drama Maxwell (for which he won Best Actor International Emmy Award in 2008), The Life of Freud, Victoria and Albert, Murder in Mind and Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (BAFTA nomination).
He has also appeared in the films Effie, The Bank Job, The In-Laws, A Perfect Murder, Executive Decision and Sunday (winner of the best film at the Sundance Film Festival).
Suchet has also worked extensively in theatre, where his recent credits include Long Day’s Journey Into Night, All My Sons (Best Actor What’sOnStage.com Awards, Evening Standard Theatre Awards nomination and Olivier Award nomination), Complicit (Old Vic), Once in a Lifetime (National Theatre), The Last Confession (Theatre Royal Haymarket) and Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest and Othello (RSC).
His other theatre work includes Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Critic’s Circle Award), Separation (Olivier Award nomination), Oleanna and Amadeus (Best Actor, Royal Variety Club Award, Tony nomination on Broadway and Olivier Award nomination).
Adrian Noble was the Artistic Director of the RSC from 1990-2003, directing numerous productions including The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Stratford, Barbican), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stratford, Barbican and Broadway), The Seagull (Stratford, Barbican) and The Secret Garden (Stratford, London).
Elsewhere, his work includes The Captain of Kopenick (National Theatre), The King’s Speech (West End), The Tempest, Amadeus, Inherit The Wind and As You Like It as Artistic Director at The Old Globe Theatre (San Diego), Hamlet (Stratford Festival of Canada), Cosi Fan Tutti (Opera De Lyon), Summer and Smoke, A Woman Of No Importance and The Home Place (Abbey and West End), Ibsen’s Brand starring Ralph Fiennes (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Pericles (The Roundhouse and West End) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium) starring Michael Ball.
Noble also directed a film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his book How To Do Shakespeare was released in 2009. He is currently directing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for The Theatre Royal Bath.
Produced by Kim Poster for Stanhope Productions and Nica Burns, The Importance of Being Earnest is designed by Peter McKintosh, with lighting by Howard Harrison, music by Larry Blank and sound by Gareth Owen.
For more information visit www.importanceofearnest.com/.