An Ideal Husband

by Oscar Wilde

seen by live streaming from the Vaudeville THeatre on 5 June 2018

Dominic Dromgoole has created a theatre company to perform all of Oscar Wilde's social comedies and some associated works; this is the third major production. Jonathan Church directs Sally Britton as Lady Chiltern, Nathaniel Parker as Sir Robert Chiltern, Faith Omole as Miss Mabel Chiltern, Frances Barber as Mrs Cheveley, Susan Hampshire as Lady Markby, Edward Fox as the Earl of Caversham and Freddie Fox as his son Viscount Goring.

This play has more substance than Lady Windermere's Fan (reviewed in March this year); though perhaps this is a modern conclusion, since the potential scandal driving the plot is one of political corruption rather than the revelation of illegitimate birth. Mrs Cheveley wishes to blackmail Lord Chiltern (a member of the government) into supporting a shady foreign deal because she has irrefutable evidence of the fact that he based his fortune on selling a Cabinet secret many years before. Although she is eventually foiled, and we are on the whole glad that this is the case (since she is herself hardly a moral paragon), the situation nevertheless raises many pertinent questions about loyalty, honesty, public power and private integrity, and there is no doubt that she scores many points.

The setting is of course very privileged - most of the cast (excepting a few servants) have titles, and they move in the best social circles - Wilde has some fun at the expense of the tedious but inescapable social obligations of this caste. Frances Barber gives Mrs Cheveley a wonderfully louche presence in this setting; she is more than willing to ruffle everyone she meets - men by flirting with them or beating them at their own political games, women by insulting them with a veneer of politeness. In contrast, Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern can only appear somewhat stuffy and blandly 'good', although the point of the play is to skewer their idealistic approach to personal relationships and replace them with something more resilient; Nathaniel Parker and Sally Britton bring off this transformation credibly. 

The ridiculously crusty Earl of Caversham and the impossible dandy his son Lord Goring (played by real father and son Edward and Freddie Fox) represent a comic double act; it is a sad irony that in Wilde's own life a far more quarrelsome aristocrat and his far more wayward and unreliable son would have a devastating part to play, by no means comic. But here, Lord Goring unexpectedly provides the principal moral contrast to Mrs Cheveley's machinations, and behind his hilarious preening he hides a heart of gold and provides the means to extricate his friends from their dilemmas. Freddie Fox revels in the preening but equally convinces in his good sense and quick thinking.

Though the establishment has protected its own in the denouement, and Mrs Cheveley is summarily vanquished by having her own past sins come home to roost, there is an undercurrent of disqueit here which makes the play more provocative and more satisfying to watch in this enjoyable production.