The Importance of Being… Earnest?

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), until 28 August ★★★★★

Actors take to the stage for a performance of Oscar Wilde’s famous play, opening lines are delivered and the titular character Earnest is is set to make his grand entrance. But there’s a problem – the leading man hasn’t turned up. There are panicked looks, anxiously whispered asides, and the director takes to the stage with a novel solution: one that makes you thankful for the number of performers and/or show-offs that you get in an average Edinburgh audience during August.

This is interactive theatre that could double as a waking nightmare for people with an aversion to audience participation,

although sensibly nobody becomes a major part of the show against their will.

A series of clever tricks are used to ease the fledgling stars into their roles, with plenty of room for them to enjoy their unexpected stint in the (occasionally literal) spotlight.

The chaos increases further in the second of three acts. To misquote Oscar himself: “To lose one actor may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.” Look closer and you can see the clever ways in which that chaos is controlled, with perfect timing and staging ensuring that this is a play that only ever goes as wrong as it is designed to.

The final act ups the stakes even further, the professional cast dealing with the ever-increasing number of speedily-trained co-stars like so many plates spinning on poles. The result is pretty much irresistible as a performance, guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of even the greatest of improv-phobic curmudgeons.

It’s a high-wire act that presumably works better on some afternoons than others, although there’s a suspicion that the obvious slickness of the operation means that there are far more triumphs than disasters. This was certainly an example of the former.