BOOKING NOW: MUST SEE EVENT

The Importance of Being Earnest?

Victoria Theatre in Halifax, November 18. Tickets 01422 351158 or victoriatheatre.co.uk

After critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe runs in both 2022 and 2023 and previous London Fringe theatre success, the hugely popular The Importance of Being… Earnest? – which takes a wildly interactive twist on this classic comedy, making the audience the true stars of the show – is embarking on a UK tour, and will play at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax later this month.

The play’s debut UK tour has a cast that includes the cream of the crop of UK improv including Lucy Trodd (a founding member of Olivier Award-winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical), Amy Cooke-Hodgeson, (a founding member of award-winning comedy hit Austentatious, who has starred in multiple UK tours, Edinburgh Fringe runs and on BBC Radio 4’s recording of the show) and Tom Bulpett (who starred in The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess Theatre in the West End).

In this riotous twist on a much-loved classic the show opens to looming disaster; the actor playing Ernest in Oscar Wilde’s famed farce fails to arrive on cue. In a monumental effort to ‘save the show’, a real audience member is quickly cast in the lead role. But this recasting sets off a hilarious chain of events that, one by one, renders the rest of the cast unable to continue their performances.

As more audience members are encouraged to step into the spotlight, led backstage for costume and make-up, impromptu auditions, the painting of portraits; doing whatever’s needed to help the show go on, an absurd controlled madness ensues – until it feels as if there are almost as many audience members in the cast as there are in the audience.

This is a comedic masterpiece of meticulous logistics, involved audiences and masterful stage management. The Importance of Being... Earnest? is an exciting and hilarious experience both to watch and be part of.

Developed alongside the company’s flagship open-rehearsal initiative, where audiences are invited into the rehearsal room to participate in the creative process, the show is written by Josh King, Simon Paris and is directed by Simon Paris.

The company’s vision is for the public to discover their own creative power and contribute to the future of theatre as active participants, collaborators, and decision-makers.