Review: An Ideal Husband, Lyric Hammersmith ★★★★

An Ideal Husband, Lyric Hammersmith

Photo Helen Murrary

OSCAR WILDE Scandal is Always in Season

When Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband first opened at the Haymarket in January 1895, its author was at the height of his fame and months away from ruin. His name was removed from the theatre billing as his trial for gross indecency began. Wilde himself noted that events seemed “prophetic of the tragedies to come.” It is exactly a century since the play was last seen at the Lyric Hammersmith, and Associate Director Nicholai La Barrie has brought it back with a bold, fresh vision: a present-day London setting, an all-Black cast, and a pulsing contemporary soundtrack, while keeping Wilde’s original text almost entirely intact.

The setting is a London that has mislaid its mobile phones but retained its idle upper classes, its party circuit, and its talent for scandal. The all-Black cast bring a specific cultural texture to their portrayal of the English bourgeoisie, something Caribbean British, aspirational and assured, which adds an extra layer of meaning to Wilde’s excavations of power and reputation. This is a world where the desire to belong to the establishment carries particular weight when the establishment has not always held the door open.

The evening opens with DJ Trevor Nelson‘s voice introducing the charity ball, and with the full company dancing the Electric Slide. It is an immediately joyful and precise piece of direction, placing us straight inside a social performance where everyone is watching and being watched. Holly Khan‘s sound design threads R&B classics through the production with wit, and the music filling the auditorium before the show and after the interval is loud, specific and celebratory: you arrive into the world of the play before the lights have even changed. The musical choices land as both joke and comment throughout.

Rajha Shakiry‘s design is immaculate. Two Mayfair interiors materialise and dissolve with ease, dressed with care: heavy whisky glasses, a carefully laid tablecloth, a red leather chair that speaks of old money. Her costumes are equally considered across the whole cast, the looks landing somewhere between Met Gala and Kente cloth: elegant, specific, and making a quiet argument about who gets to occupy these rooms and on whose terms.

Among the performances, Tiwa Lade as Mabel Chiltern is a particular delight: a hummingbird of a performance, all quick energy and wit, darting from person to person and hypnotising all with her charm. Chiké Okonkwo as Lord Chiltern commands attention through physical intelligence, a cane pointed and prodded to underline his son’s diminished standing. Not every performance in the large ensemble has quite the same energy, and the first half takes a little while to find its pace though it is always enjoyable.

It is Jamael Westman who is the production’s beating heart. Playing Lord Goring, the dandyish, quip-ready best friend, he does something more than steal scenes, though he does that too. His performance makes you think about Wilde himself: a man whose desires placed him in direct conflict with the society his plays so brilliantly dissected, and who understood scandal not as a social inconvenience but as an existential threat. There is a quality of private knowledge in Westman’s Goring that becomes quietly moving as the evening develops, and his comic timing is impeccable throughout.

The four acts each have a different tone, and the third, the most overtly farcical, tips into broad comedy with considerable energy if occasionally at the expense of the more serious undertones. But the final act draws everything together with assurance, and the core of what Wilde wrote, about blackmail and compromise, the marriages we make, the secrets they conceal, and who we are allowed to be at what cost, lands with real force.

This is Wilde with a bold new twist and his impeccable machinery intact. A production that is stylish, serious and joyful.

The party never stopped. The scandals just found different rooms. Stylish, serious and joyful.

Photo credits: An Ideal Husband (Photos by Helen Murray)

How to Save on tickets at Lyric Hammersmith

Check out my article on Lyric Hammersmith discounts for young West Londoners. People who live or work in Hammersmith and Fulham can also get free tickets for First Nights.

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