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.
