'An Ideal Husband' at The Vaudeville Theatre

My first play of the year was 'An Ideal Husband' by Oscar Wilde playing at the Vaudeville Theatre on The Strand, yes, the theatre famed for my receiving unexpected hugs from Amanda Palmer when she was lying on the floor being photographed by Neil Gaiman (yes, I have to work AFP into every blog post). It was a last minute booking so that Dr Theatre could see to Chris. I won't claim to be a great Wilde fan (I think I've only seen the Handbag play) but I was quite looking forward to seeing Alexander Hanson and Samantha Bond.

It's a play that should resonate quite nicely at the moment, a tale of dodgy financial deals and corrupt politicians, of the public versus the private face, a comedy of morals that never quite got going for me. Alexander Hanson played the politician who made his money selling a secret when he worked in the Foreign Office and has since gone on to be a highly praised minister. Samantha Bond is a rich widow who has money invested in a canal project and also has an incriminating letter that would end Hanson's marriage and career. And there you have the plot. Add in the posh wife, the miscellaneous friend Lord Goring and his father and the politician's sister and you have the full play plus sub-plots.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the writing or structure of the play. Something that should be so current with corrupt politicians, newspaper scandals and suchlike, and it failed to hit the target. I'm not sure why, whether it was the hit and miss acting, the production, the attempts at historical accuracy or whatever. But I wasn't impressed. I also failed to be impressed with the monotonous golden coloured set - it looked quite glam at first but soon became quite tiresome. It was a relief to see Lord Goring's turquoise library (yes, turquoise) in the second half but the unrelieved boldness of colour soon became a bit much as well. How rare is it to hear me complaining about bright colours? That says it all really.

I liked Alexander Hanson in 'A Little Night Music' but he seemed to be doing it by numbers in this play and his awful feet shuffling became rather annoying (he did that in 'Night Music' as well). I identified Elliot Cowan (who played Lord Goring) as 'the Noel Coward' figure immediately - there obviously isn't a Noel Coward character in an Oscar Wilde play but that's what he came across like to me - maybe he wants a part in a Coward play? Rachael Stirling played the stolid wife with the right amount of disdain for non-posh people but every now and then I couldn't help but hear her mother in her voice (Diana Rigg). The saving grace was Samantha Bond who I've not seen on stage before and who played the nasty blackmailing money-grabbing but oh-so-pretty and clever Mrs Cheveley. Her character has all the best lines and best put-downs and she delivered them to a T. Unfortunately she wasn't in the final scenes so I missed her.

So. It was nice to get to the theatre again and always nice to return to the scene of an Amanda Hug but I won't be seeing this play again. Once is definitely enough.