ABOUT THE PLAY

 

Oscar Wilde’s brilliant An Ideal Husband is a story of morality, blackmail and

political corruption. Characterized by Wilde’s biting wit and sparkling humor, the play is also a tender-hearted portrait of a marriage.

Sir Robert Chiltern (Alexander Hanson), a highly successful government

minister, finds his reputation, career and marriage to the loving but idealistic

Lady Chiltern (Rachael Stirling) threatened by the arrival of the mysterious

Mrs Cheveley (Samantha Bond). Confronted with a damning secret from his

past, Sir Robert turns for help to his friend, Lord Goring (Elliot Cowan) an

apparently idle philanderer, who himself has a history with Mrs Cheveley.

Can Goring save his friend from ruin? And will Lady Chiltern be able to reconcile

the man she loves with her expectations of an ideal husband?

 

“ Sooner or later, we shall all have to pay for what

we do…no one should be entirely judged by their past.”

Oscar Wilde

 

CAST & CREATIVE

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The Earl of Caversham, K.G. - Charles Kay

Viscount Goring, his Son - Elliot Cowan

Sir Robert Chiltern, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs - Alexander Hanson

Vicomte De Nanjac, Attache at the French Embassy in London - Tom Mothersdale

Mr. Montford - Philip Desmeules

Mason, Butler to Sir Robert Chiltern - Derek Howard

Phipps, Lord Goring's Servant - Max Digby

James, a Footman - George Beach

Harold, a Footman - Philip Desmeules

Lady Chiltern - Rachael Stirling

Lady Markby - Caroline Blakiston

The Countess of Basildon - Gemma Page

Lord Barford - George Beach

Lady Barford - Jane Dowden

Mrs. Marchmont - Tor Clark

Duchess of Maryborough - Carmen Rodriguez

Miss Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert Chiltern's Sister - Fiona Button

Mrs. Cheveley - Samantha Bond

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Director - Lindsay Posner

Designer - Stephen Brimson Lewis

Lighting Designer - Peter Mumford

Composer - Matthew Scott  

Sound Designer - Gareth Owen

Casting Director - Sarah Bird

Dialect Coach - Penny Dyer

Production Consultant - John Dalston

Company Stage Manager - Elaine De Saulles 

Deputy Stage Manager - Ruthie Philip-Smith

Assistant Stage Manager - Matt Macfarlane

Costume Supervisor - Joan Hughes

Wardrobe Mistress - Michelle Piper

Deputy Wardrobe Mistress - Emma J. Mansfield

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QUOTES & REVIEWS

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THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – Charles Spencer

* * * *

Hugely entertaining, a curious mixture of melodrama, Wilde’s distinctive epigrammatic wit and sudden moments of deeper feeling.

 

What makes the play special is its human sympathy

 

Lindsay Posner’s production captures the piece’s mixture of elegant plotting and sudden passages of emotional truth.

 

Stephen Brimson Lewis’s opulent design

 

Alexander Hanson powerfully captures the politician’s rising panic, and there are strong performances from Rachael Stirling and Elliot Cowan.

 

The real star turn comes from Samantha Bond … she brings a delicious vivacity and wit to the role, delivering her lines in a voice that is a mixture of honey and ground glass.

 

Richly entertaining evening

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DAILY MAIL – Quentin Letts

* * * *

An Ideal Evening Out

 

Proof Oscar was on to a real winner

 

Mad and masterly

 

Samantha Bond is terrific

 

The night is made by a performance of rising frenzy from Elliot Cowan, fast developing into a top-rank talent.

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THE TIMES – Libby Purves

* * * *

A class apart

 

Samantha Bond makes a splendid adventuress

 

Elegance and wit apart, this is about money and power – some things don’t change.

 

With money and power at its heart, Wilde’s comedy touches a modern nerve

 

The cast skip through wordy epigrams, though none with quite as glorious relish as Caroline Blakiston, who won a mid-scene round of applause.

 

Max Digby as Phipps the manservant display and understated flounce which will carry him far.

 

FINANCIAL TIMES – Sarah Hemming

It’s a handsome revival and very well played

There’s much comic mileage in Wilde’s arch portrayal of a society steeped in pretence and he winds up the plot to near farce as the vexed parties converge on Lord Goring’s house.

Posner’s production looks gorgeous on Stephen Brimson Lewis’s set of gilt and mirrors.

it builds up nicely to a tremendous stand-off between Mrs Cheveley and Lady Chiltern, with the excellent Samantha Bond, splendidly poised and huskily wicked, circling her prey, the stunning Rachael Stirling.

Elliot Cowan’s droll, mischievous Goring builds a lovely rapport with the audience.

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DAILY EXPRESS – Paul Callan

* * * *

A gloriously topical tale

 

It resonates with a loud topical ring

 

The elegance of Wilde’s structure must be admired

 

The truly wonderful Samantha Bond as Mrs Cheveley steals every scene she is in.

 

Alexander Hanson brings a well-observed crushed dignity to the part of Sir Robert.

 

Rachael Stirling is superbly priggish as Lady Chiltern

 

The evening really belongs to Elliot Cowan … delightfully handled by the talented Mr Cowan.

 

Much praise too for Lindsay Posner’s fluent direction and designer Stephen Brimson Lewis’s gorgeously glowing sets.

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EVENING STANDARD – Henry Hitchings

* * * *

Energetically entertaining

 

A glossy melodrama studded with smart lines and imbued with humanity.

 

Poignant and vivid

 

A mesmerising, husky Samantha Bond

 

Alexander Hanson, passionate

 

Superb performances 

 

Rachael Stirling is note-perfect

 

Sprightly work in smaller roles by Charles Kay and Fiona Button

 

The star turn comes from Elliot Cowan. Here he demonstrates his real gift is for comedy – and it is quote some gift.

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THE GUARDIAN – Michael Billington

 

Posner’s production does full justice to its genuine substance.

 

Alexander Hanson brings out the posturing element in Chiltern’s public virtue and his corresponding rage when his dark secret is revealed: there is real force in the scene where he turns on his over-idealising wife to announce that she has ruined him.

 

Rachael Stirling is powerful

 

Samantha Bond looks handsome as hell in her silken gowns

 

What you might call the Ibsenite side of Wilde’s play, which involves exposing a marital life-life, come across excellently.

 

Elliot Cowan captures well the underlying sanity and goodness of Viscount Goring

 

The point about Wilde is that he expresses his philosophy of life through the melodramatic action. When Posner’s production focuses on that it is at its best.

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THE INDEPENDENT – Paul Taylor

 

This production is handsomely designed

 

Samantha Bond is splendid as Mrs Cheveley

 

A masterwork of good-humoured, charitable insight into human frailty

 

OBSERVER - Susannah Clapp

 

The considerable gilt-and-ormolu beauty of Stephen Brimson Lewis's design installs a monumentality

 

The bons mots of the opening dialogue hover for moments in the air – as if waiting to be photographed and framed – before they are batted back

 

Samantha Bond glitters like an adder

 

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY - Kate Bassett

 

In an opulent revival, Oscar Wilde's blackmail drama explores themes of political sleaze and the dangers of idealism

 

Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband is pure gold ... West End productions are becoming positively splendiferous.

 

Lindsay Posner's revival of Wilde's 1890s' domestic-going-on-political drama oozes opulence

 

Moments of heartfelt naturalism from Hanson and Stirling

 

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - Tim Auld

 

Posner should be applauded for bringing to the surface the Ibsenesque passion and seriousness that underscores Wilde’s play.

 

SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE - Christopher Hart

 

* * * *

A West End revival shows Wilde was about plot

 

A fascinating, psychologically penetrating study of the pursuit of power and the cost of success

 

The Importance of Being Earnest may be one of the most evergreen comedies in drama, but An Ideal Husband boasts a better plot... Numerous twists and turns ensue

 

Elliot Cowan makes for a tremendously likeable Lord Goring, and a refreshingly unusual one as well... much funnier and more amiable

 

Alexander Hanson is very good as Chiltern and electrifying in the confrontation scene with his wife.

 

Caroline Blakiston is a hoot as the eccentric old battle-axe Lady Markby

 

Fiona Button is a delightful Mabel

 

Samantha  Bond a charmingly poisonous Mrs Cheveley

 

There’s a subtly compelling performance from Rachael Stirling as Gertrude, Lady Chiltern. Sterling invests her with considerable complexity so that at times you almost admire her statuesque inflexibility and impassioned moral absolutism.

 

Fine performances

 

There are resplendent sets by Stephen Brimson Lewis

 

The one liners are bitingly delivered

 

Director Lindsay Posner has cooked up a very classy and handsome production of a work which shows Wilde at his most wittily serious and subversively moral

 

METRO – Claire Allfree

* * * *

Wilde is still on the money

 

Lindsay Posner’s sumptuous production emphasizes a moral seriousness and a depth of human feeling, revealing the play as a poignant examination of love.

 

Posner’s excellent cast

 

Wilde’s knotty plotting yields some seriously good entertainment

 

Samantha Bond is exquisitely vampish as Mrs Cheveley

 

Elliot Cowan finds plenty of eloquent slapstick and empathy

 

Alexander Hanson is truly chilling

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Whatsonstage.com – Michael Coveney

* * * *

Lindsay Posner’s superb revival is a timely reminder of its sharp definition of troubles in private and political life

 

Posner’s revival reasserts the play’s Ibsenite classicism coated in polished veneer

 

The intervening century has done nothing to blunt the play’s cutting edge in its discussion of power morals and marriage.

 

Hanson and Bond are well matched by Rachael Stirling as Lady Chiltern and Elliot Cowan as Lord Goring in their sinuous arguments and witty debate

 

The setting in Grosvenor Square is beautifully designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis as a gilded monument to wealth and privilege.

 

Admirers of Downton Abbey will be thunderstruck by the quality of the script, the elegance of phrase and the architecture of thought and speech.

 

The cast is strong all the way down to Charles Kay’s dyspeptic grandee and Caroline Blakiston’s magnificent dowager right through to Max Digby’s deliciously observed servant and Fiona Button’s pert society sibling.

 

A wonderful evening