The Importance of Being Earnest is playing at the Noel Coward theatre until 10 January (Photo: Marc Brenner)

The Importance of Being Earnest review and star rating: ★★★★★

Oscar Wilde’s pointedly ridiculous comedy of manners about two men who conspire to both be called Earnest in order to win the affections of two different women is fairly hard to modernise. That’s because of the language, obviously, but also because, by and large, people want to see the Earnest in their mind’s eye: the Earnest with opulent, heavy set Edwardian drawing rooms full of fancily dressed people fannying around. Max Webster’s vivid new production has a go anyway: finding new life in a masterly adaptation that’ll please traditionalists too.

Of course the freshness doesn’t come from textual renovations. Twice the

See Full Page