Coming soon to the Theatre Royal is Arthur Miller’s The Price which has as its theme the price that has to be paid for life’s advantages gained at others’ expense. It is a favourite Ibsen theme of the past crashing into the present and Wilde, like his Norwegian near contemporary uses the scaffolding to support his various other concerns such as the nascent women’s movement and the place of women in society, political corruption and the general moral tenor of the age.

Sir Robert Chiltern (Nathaniel Parker) the supposed ‘ideal husband’, is, when confronted with his unsavoury past, full of self-justification and the standard cant of the hypocrite. What emerges is a recognisably twenty-first century politician – and twentieth come to that – of a type to be both reviled and admired. Whilst we can say by the end of the play that he has learned his lesson at some small cost to his self-esteem and the rosy admiration of his wife (Sally Bretton), Wilde leaves us in no doubt that he has in some sense got away with it, that is, the political corruption that set him on the course to success.  Thus is the irony of the play’s title played out.

The other character to whom Chiltern’s reputation must answer is his good friend and confidant, Lord Goring (Freddie Fox).  Many of Wilde’s witticisms are not designed to bear scrutiny and are best uttered in a manner that doesn’t suggest that they should. Mr Fox, perhaps because his character has echoes of Oscar himself, has invested the part with an elegant brio whilst at the same time having mastered that particularly Wildean gear change from delivering frothy, inconsequential and often unsupportable epigrams to something more considered, persuasive and born of an earnest conviction, which elsewhere would merely dull the polished wit.

The show, which is on tour from the West End, has no shortage of star talent to entertain us. Frances Barber is positively gleeful in her devious manipulation and blackmail of Sir Robert. Every swish of her costume, every pointed gesture, every hiss of defiance sets her out as a woman with an abundance of willpower, ambition and guile. Susan Hampshire as Lady Markby is a benignly garrulous delight, whilst Edward Fox (The Earl of Caversham) pours a wealth of experience into his slightly bemused relic from an earlier generation.

Director, Jonathan Church has found a style which points up the contemporary relevance of the play whilst retaining much of the sparkle of Wilde’s dialogue. The setting by Simon Hiiglett, suggestive of a gilded cage, underlines the extent to which the privileged world in which the powerful move is alien to the everyday reality of the public; something true of Wilde’s age no less than our own.   ★★★★☆   Graham Wyles   20^th July 2018

Photo by Marc Brenner