An Ideal Husband

Synopsis

Opening to rave reviews, Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband plays at the Vaudeville Theatre to the end of February 2011.

First performed 1895, Mrs Cheveley (Samantha Bond) attempts to ruin the career of politician Sir Robert Chiltern (Alexander Hanson) by producing incriminating evidence about his past. However, she hasn't reckoned on the faithfulness and good memory of his devoted wife Gertrude (Rachael Stirling), nor the assistance of his philandering friend Lord Goring (Elliot Cowan).

Alexander Hanson returns to the West End fresh from his Broadway success in Trevor Nunn’s Menier Chocolate Factor revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music for An Ideal Husband. Samantha Bond’s many previous West End credits include Arcadia, Donkeys’ Years, Amy’s View and Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance

The cast of An Ideal Husband also includes Caroline Blakiston, Charles Kay and Fiona Button. The production is directed by Lindsay Posner and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis.

This is the first West End outing of An Ideal Husband in over ten years, since the frequent forays of Sir Peter Hall’s long-running revival which, from its initial opening in 1992 ran for more than six years at various venues including the Old Vic, Albery (now the Noel Coward), Gielgud (twice) and Theatre Royal Haymarket (three times) as well as a stint on Broadway.

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Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 11 November 2010

Although Oscar Wilde’s second great comedy, An Ideal Husband was “re-discovered” twice in the 1980s – in severely contrasted, but equally fine productions by Peter Hall and Philip Prowse – Lindsay Posner’s superb revival at the Vaudeville is a timely reminder of its sharp definition of troubles in private and political life.

Often dismissed as too long and too melodramatic, Posner’s production reasserts the play’s Ibsenite classicism coated in a polished veneer: Alexander Hanson’s Sir Robert Chiltern, a rising political star in the Foreign Office, is cornered by Samantha Bond’s blackmailing Mrs Cheveley for having sold a Cabinet secret to another government.

Mrs Cheveley is keen to promote her own commercial interests at the expense of Sir Robert’s integrity: “Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man – now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You couldn’t survive it.”

Even at the time of its premiere, this mu...

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Latest User Review

Gareth James - 17 January 2011:

Plus another half point for the performances, making 3.5! When I first saw this play, in a production by Peter Hall c.15 years ago, it fizzed; so much so that I went back to see it again when it returned to London after an extensive tour. It seemed to me to be so much better than the play most consider his best – The Importance of Being Ernest. For reasons I cannot fathom, in Lindsay Posner’s production the first half is ponderously slow – one of the longest ‘set up’s’ I can remember – whilst the second half zips along. Oscar Wilde’s play may be 115 years old but if you ignore the settings and costumes, its thoroughly modern – unlike contemporaries like Chekhov or Ibsen, it has hardly aged. The story is rather timely – a corrupt act in the past comes back to haunt a rising star politician. The morals of the case are explored as the events unfold, but with Wilde’s usual sharp wit, satirising the upper classes along the way. Stephen Brimson-Lewis’ opulent gold set becomes three different rooms in the same house and with the insertion of a simple green wall transforms into a room in another house. With superb period costumes, it looks gorgeous and seems to me to capture the time and the society of the protagonists perfectly. What makes this revival is brilliant casting. Samantha Bond is a suitably icy Mrs Cheveley, Rachel Sterling (looking mote like her mother than she ever has before) a moralistic Lady Chiltern and Alexander Hanson a somewhat ernest archetypal politician with an ability to change his stance and rationalise it seamlessly. The star of the show though is Elliott Cowan’s Viscount Goring, a brilliant and witty creation in full flight, and there are lovely cameos from Charles Kay, Caroline Blakiston and Fiona Button. Such a shame the first two acts didn’t have the pace of the second two, but worth a look nonetheless. ...

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