The Importance of Being Earnest – Remember the Clause Season

Classic turn-of-the-century comedy of social manners. A very complicated plot that includes the famous “A Handbag!” line .. Jack Worthing is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, daughter of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell, and cousin of his friend Algernon. They cannot wed until the mystery of his parentage (he was found in a handbag on Victoria Station) is resolved. Algy discovers that Jack has a pretty young ward, Cecily, living at the Manor and visits her pretending to be Jack’s fictitious (and wicked) brother Ernest.

On 24th May 1988 Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government implemented Section 28, a local authority clause set in UK Law that banned the right to “promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality.” It also outlawed “the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” As part of the Pride Festival 2018, All or Nothing Repertory Theatre Company’s first season aims to highlight the 30 year anniversary of this terrible law.

Part of the Pride Festival