Husband Plays Haymarket for Third Time

Sir Peter Hall's production of Oscar Wilde's social satire An Ideal Husband is to transfer yet again. Following its run at the Albery Theatre - which ends 22 August to make way for the Almeida's first full West End season - the show will return to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket for a third time from 25 August 1998.

In Wilde's 1895 comedy, a woman attempts to ruin a politician's successful career by producing incriminating evidence about his past. However, she hasn't reckoned on the faithfulness and good memory of his devoted wife.

If a production's maximum allocation is nine lives then An Ideal Husband must be dangerously close to the end of its line. But, as yet, it shows absolutely no signs of winding down, having repeatedly extended numerous 'limited' runs. Since its inception in 1992, the production has run for seven months at Gielgud Theatre, for three months at the Haymarket in 1996, nine months at the Old Vic and a season on Broadway. It returned to the West End in August 1997 for two months back at the Haymarket before transferring back to the Gielgud for another five months and then to the Albery for six months.

The production's soon-to-be engagement at the Haymarket is yet again restricted. It will have to clear out by 3 November when the National Theatre production of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love transfers to the West End. So this Hall marathon may soon have yet another name to add to its list of host venues.

The current cast of An Ideal Husband includes Kate O'Mara, Christopher Cazenove and Simon Ward.

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