Lady Windermere’s Fan
by Oscar Wilde
Classic Spring Theatre
Directed by Kathy Burke
Vaudeville Theatre, London,
Friday 19th January 2018, 19.30
CAST
Samantha Spiro – Mrs Erlynne
Kevin Bishop – Lord Darlington
Jennifer Saunders – Duchess of Berwick
Victoria Blunt – Mrs Cowper-Cowper
Matthew Darcy – Parker
Roger Evans – Mr Dumby
Joshua James – Lord Windermere
Joseph Marcell – Lord Lorton
Natasha Magigi – Lady Plymdale
Ami Metcalf – Lady Agatha Carlisle / Rosalie
Grace Molony – Lady Windermere
Charlie Mulliner – Lady Stutfield
Sian Polhill-Thomas – Lady Jedburgh
David O’Reilly – Cecil Graham
Benedict Salter – Sir James Royston
Gary Shelford – Mr Hopper
The Duchess of Berwick (Jennifer Saunders), Ami Metcalf as Lady Agatha, and Lady Windermere (Grace Molony)
After the two month Christmas gap in theatre reviews since A Woman of No Importance, we’re back, and as it happens still with Dominic Dromgoole’s Classic Spring Theatre Company for the second in their Oscar Wilde season. It was said that A Woman of No Importance was less popular with producers because of its large cast … but Lady Windermere’s Fan has sixteen too. Dominic Dromgoole has pointed to the paucity of London productions of the “other three” classic Wilde comedies over twenty years. We saw the last version of Lady Windermere’s Fan in London. That was directed by Peter Hall in 2002 with Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs Erlynne and her real daughter, Joely Richardson, as her stage daughter Lady Windermere. Michael Billington thought it “survived largely as a vehicle for two remarkable performers.” The critics were generally luke-warm. We were just excited at seeing Vanessa Redgrave.
In 2018, the celebrity performer aspect comes again. Three major comic actors / comedians are involved. Kathy Burke directs, Kevin Bishop plays Lord Darlington and Jennifer Saunders is the Duchess of Berwick. Plus Joseph Marcell was in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It’s a rare stage appearance for Jennifer Saunders, and it must be in the family as Ade Edmondson is currently playing Malvolio for the RSC. They were both having lunch in the same restaurant as us when we saw Twelfth Night in Stratford. We saw her years ago on a French & Saunders tour. Look at the names … Windermere, Carlisle, Berwick, Jedburgh and Darlington … Wilde went to the Lake District in 1891, where he wrote the play. It was first performed in 1892.
The plot is broadly similar to An Ideal Husband with a sexual scandal rather than a financial one. Lady Windermere’s Fan is virtually a template for the later 1895 one. Add in a missing parent, and lack of knowledge of one’s parentage which went on to The Importance of Being Earnest.
Broadly, the young, innocent and puritanical Lady Windermere is 21 today. Her husband has given her a fan with her name on (not much of a 21st birthday present, you may think). The rakish but fiendishly witty Lord Darlington is pursuing her with wicked intentions and smothering her in epigrams.
The Duchess of Berwick (Jennifer Saunders) and Lady Windermere (Grace Molony)
The Duchess of Berwick arrives with news. It transpires that London society knows that Lady Windermere’s husband is paying regular visits to a Mrs Erlynne and giving her lots of money. After initial disbelief, Lady Windermere checks his bank book. It is true. Then her husband wants her to invite the fruity Mrs Erlynne to her 21st party.
Joshua James as Lord Windermere, Grace Molony as Lady Windermere. He has suggested inviting Mrs Erlynne to the party,
Mrs Erlynne arrives. Lord Darlington sees it as a chance to persuade Lady Windermere to “console herself” with him. Mrs Erlynne is actually Lady Windermere’s long lost mother, who she thought dead. This is why Lord Windermere has been paying her money. He doesn’t want his wife to know that her sainted mum is actually a fallen woman.
Lady Windermere has gone to Lord Darlington’s rooms, presumably with consolation on her mind, and is followed by Mrs Erlynne desperate not to let her daughter make the same mistake as she had 20 years earlier. Of course Lord Snooty Windermere and his pals turn up from the club. Mrs Erlynne and Lady Windermere hide, and then Cecil (an Oscar Wilde lookalike) spots Lady Windermere’s fan on the table. We have a title for the play! Mrs Erlynne emerges and says she took it by mistake, but is revealed as hiding in a bachelor’s rooms. Lady Windermere is off the hook and slips away. There’s a final Act to resolve it all. Dirty Darlington doesn’t get consoled.
Lord Darlington (Kevin Bishop) suggests consolation (Act 2)
Grace Molony is a perfect choice for Lady Windermere … they must have seen her in The Country Girls last year. She radiates innocence and it was a conscious choice to make both Lord and Lady Windermere young … the text sets her at 21. He is usually older, and Wilde must have intended him to be older. Joshua James looks the part, but he addresses his wife as “Child” and they look about the same age. “Dear” would be such a very simple improvement over “child.” That “child” address is a give-away … it is more plausible that a somewhat older husband would be a more likely partner for the 20 years older Mrs Erlynne. I guess that Wilde saw an older Lord Windermere, undermined potentially by a younger Lord Darlington. Here it is reversed.
Joshua James and Grace Molony are an excellent pairing. In the dullest scenes she manages to find some enlivening and endearing business : the inadvertent snorts are lovely. However, I would have wanted her to be somewhat more tempted by Lord Darlington’s entreaties. A spark of flirting would be good.
Jennifer Saunders is a marvellous Duchess, not going for the standard Edith Evans hooting elderly at all, but filling in so much with gestures, shooing her daughter Agatha about to look at pictures of Switzerland or to admire sunsets. I’m glad that unlike other reviews, I did not think of saying she was ‘absolutely fabulous.’ But she was.
Jennifer Saunders & Her Band: Front of curtain
As with A Woman of No Importance they used a front of curtain piece to fill in the major set change (Act 3, Lord Darlington’s rooms back to the Windermere’s house). Jennifer Saunders does the ribald song (written by Kathy Burke), and the four accompanying her as servants of the house, all act in character while playing. It went down a storm and I thought it lifted the atmosphere. The Act 1 / Act 2 switch (mild set dressing for the ball) is enlivened by having the female guests stalk across the front of curtain interacting silently with the audience, first coquettishly, then disparagingly.
Kevin Bishop as Lord Darlington in Act 3
Kevin Bishop is the other star name, and he does a great comedy actor’s job on Lord Darlington … no professional stand up comedian peeping through. He had command and authority in the role. Samantha Spiro is in the normal leading role as Mrs Erlynne, and is first rate … better than I remember Vanessa Redgrave (who was too old) actually.
Joseph Marcela as Lord Lorton, Samantha Spiro as Mrs Erlynne. Act 2
There are intrinsic issues with the play. Acts 1 and 4 are wordy and static, and Act 4 is even po-faced and melodramatic on the page. Act 4 requires sincerity. It gets it, but it drops the mood and pace. Act 2 (the evening ball) and Act 3 (Lord Darlington’s rooms) are full of activity and movement. The party scene has a lot of coming and going with rapid entrances and exits, and that needed some extra thought. The extraneous little bit in the background with Parker the butler, a male guest (we never saw which one) and an intimate moment sharing a cigarette came from nowhere – maybe it could have been incorporated (it’s certainly not in the text) but it wasn’t integrated. It was a case of miss it or make more of it. In Act 2 there are too many characters flitting on and off with not enough lines to establish themselves. Wilde’s fault. I’d combine or cut a couple.
A rough and tumble fight in Act 3 might be a first for Wilde and is fabulous stuff. David O’Reilly as Cecil is hilarious … a magnificent cameo. O’Reilly was completely in charge of his space and was a performance that lifted everyone around him. The physical casting looks great too, with Gary Shelford as Aussie Mr Hopper towering over the others. Act 3 has the BIG QUOTE (We are in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars) and it is helped by the others laughing and repeating it. It’s easily the best part of the play.
The other thing intrinsic to the play is that characters address the audience directly with their woes, a theatrical style that was current in 1892, and which Wilde in the later (and better) comedies Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest avoids. Everyone does it well, but style is the issue. Classic Spring was wise in choosing the lesser two of the four comedies first in the season.
The set design for the Windermere’s house is cool and restrained greys with a large fan shaped window. Lord Darlington’s room gets the rich dark woodwork and drapes we expect. A magic moment is Lord Darlington adopting the same pose as his portrait on the wall. The fan motif runs to the front curtain with a fan surround and pictures of the language of fans (yes, no, follow me, I love you, wait for me). We wondered if the fan signals would be used in the play, but failed to notice! Good costume.
It was the end of the first week. A few bits still felt slightly stiff without that requisite Wilde slickness BUT an advantage of that is Wilde slickness often approaches speedy gabble, and that never happened here. Clarity was good.
Overall? The play creaks with its age more than the other three Wilde comedies. The constant harping on about women being “good” and men being “bad” in the text is tedious. I first typed ‘ultimately tedious’ but no, it’s tedious from the outset. While abandoning her child is still reprehensible for Mrs Erlynne in 2018, it’s hard to get into the mindset of shame and horror about an unattached woman and an unattached man having a physical relationship.
Marvellous production and cast, hugely enjoyable evening, and it was better than my memory of 2002’s production, but overall the play itself is the thing, and I can’t see anyone being able to lift the base material over three stars … which still means Go and see it!
***
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
4
Anne Treneman, The Times ****
Mark Shenton, London Theatre Co ****
Natasha Tripney, The Stage ****
3
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph ***
Lyn Gardner, Guardian ***
Quentin Letts, Daily Mail ***
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard ***
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out ***
Christopher Hart, Sunday Times ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
OSCAR WILDE
Salomé, by Oscar Wilde, RSC, Stratford, 2017
Importance of Being Earnest 2010 by Oscar Wilde, Rain or Shine Company
Importance of Being Earnest 2014 by Oscar Wilde, West End & Tour, directed by Lucy Bailey
Importance of Being Earnest, 2015 by Oscar Wilde with David Suchet as Lady Bracknell
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde, Chichester Festival Theatre
An Ideal Husband, Classic Spring, 2018
A Woman of No Importance, Classic Spring, 2017
JOSHUA JAMES
King Lear, Globe 2017 (Edgar)
Life of Galileo, Young Vic, 2017 (Ludovico + various)
The Seagull, Chichester 2015 (Konstantin)
Platonov, Chichester 2015 (Dr Triletsky)
GRACE MOLONY
The Country Girls, Chichester Minerva, 2017 (Kate)
VICTORIA BLUNT
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Maria)
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