The Importance Of Being Earnest Launches The REP's Autumn Season

A brand new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest launches Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s exciting 2016 Autumn season.
 
The Importance of Being Earnest, which will run from 9-24 September, provides audiences with the chance to see this new production for the first time in Birmingham before completing its run at Leicester Curve from 11-29 October.  
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The production will star actress Cathy Tyson as the iconic Lady Bracknell. Cathy who has a string of theatre credits to her name including Golden Girls (RSC), The Merchant of Venice (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), and Mum’s the Word, received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her role in the film Mona Lisa which this year celebrates 30 years since its release.
 
Cathy says:  
“Lady Bracknell is so well known. I’ve played Ophelia, I’ve played Cleopatra and lots of other famous characters but people have a really personal view on Lady Bracknell. They quote lines back at you! It’s lovely because it’s theirs as well.”
 
Further cast members include Sharan Phull as repressed romantic Cecily Cardew, Edward Franklin as upper-class playboy Algernon Moncrieff, Fela Lufadejue as the dependable John (Jack) Worthing, Angela Clerkin as the uptight nanny Miss Prism, Dominic Gately as the incorruptible Reverend Chasuble, Darren Bennett as the ever-faithful servants Lane and Merriman and Martha Mackintosh as prim and proper Gwendolen Fairfax.
 
Bachelor Jack Worthing and his best mate Algernon Moncrieff hope to marry society’s most eligible ladies, Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. But the lads’ courtship of the women is far from straight forward. With double identities, handbag mishaps and hostile encounters with the formidable Lady Bracknell, the pair become embroiled in a web of mistaken identities with hilarious consequences.
 
Regarded as one of the finest comedies in the English language, Wilde’s play explodes with his trademark razor-sharp wit and uncovers the hypocrisies of a society where what is seen on the outside is very different to the truth that lies beneath. 
 
The Importance of Being Earnest is directed by Nikolai Foster, Curve’s Artistic Director, who gives Oscar Wilde’s class comedy a stylish, fresh and contemporary spin.
 
Nikolai says: 
"We are delighted that Cathy Tyson is Lady Bracknell.  She is so hugely intelligent, intuitive and imaginative. Those three things brought together with this role will create something incredible.  I first saw Cathy in ‘Band of Gold’ on TV growing up and I still remember very clearly her rawness and visceral attack. I was blown away by her!"
 
The creative team will also include Dougal Irvine as composer, Ben Cracknell as lighting designer, Dan Hoole as sound designer and design by Isla Shaw.

To book, call 0121 236 4455 or visit birmingham-rep.co.uk.