The Pun

Ridiculusmus: The Importance of Being Earnest

By Tom Doig ⋅ April 27, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

When I saw Ridiculusmus’ 2004 Comedy Festival show Ideas Men, one of the people I went with laughed so hard that he headbutted his own knee and broke his glasses. Our other companion ended up making inhuman human sounds whilst expelling bright rivers of snot from her nose. So when I heard that David Woods and John Haynes were going to play all nine characters in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest between the two of them, I was there.

The absurdity begins when Algernon (played by Haynes) asks his butler Lane to answer the door. ‘Lane’ (Woods) walks upstage, takes off his jacket, covers his bald head with a wig, and is suddenly ‘Jack Worthing’. This is fine, until Algernon calls for Lane again??and so on.

These increasingly rapid and unconvincing on stage costume changes are hilarious, especially when the duo has to begin cross-dressing. However, the shtick does get a bit exhausting. There were moments towards the end when it was like watching two guys in mismatched costumes reciting Wilde’s play, rather than acting out distinct characters. That said, the overall effect is spectacular.

For those familiar with The Importance of Being Earnest, the show is an ambitious, irreverent deformation of the old classic. For the philistines who haven’t seen it before (like me), the show is doubly satisfying, as Wilde’s script is full of enough witticisms and twists to keep you tittering and guessing till the end.

The show isn’t cheap, but it is farken brilliant.