Into the Wilde at Waddesdon (From Bucks Free Press)

Into the Wilde at Waddesdon

11:00am Saturday 14th July 2012 in Freetime By Simon Farr

OSCAR Wilde’s classic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the best-loved plays ever written - but you won’t have seen the tale told like this before.

The Pantaloons theatre company has been braving the ‘summer’ weather to perform the comedy farce to audiences at open-air venues up and down the country.

But the beloved show - dubbed a trivial comedy for serious people - has been handed a 21st century upgrade by director Mark Hayward, who is bringing the tinkered tale to Waddesdon Manor next week.

He said: "We like to take a classic tale and a few tweeks to bring it to life for a contemporary audience, which is exactly what we’ve done here.

"It still has some of the old gags that still make people laugh but we’ve taken out some of the old ones, add new jokes and references to modern films and events.

"There’s some slapstick elements in there and we’ve taken a bit of inspiration and parodied some features from American TV shows.

"So far the response has been really good, especially to the new twists and the surprises, but we’ve tried to keep the spirit of Oscar Wilde."

You would think, with the summer weather wash out, audience members would be forgoing their tickets to camp inside warmer and drier surroundings - but not a bit of it.

Mark added: "It has been an interesting open-air theatre season but we’ve been quite lucky that the rain has stayed away from our performances.

"We were up in Hampshire last week and the weather forecast said it would rain all day but we didn’t have a drop of rain.

"Our advice to people coming is ignore the weather reports, come prepared and enjoy the show as the weather is part of the fun."

He also urged the audience members at Waddesdon Manor to make use of the ‘butlers’ - show performers who will help guests to their seats and fetch them drinks before they hit the stage.

The farce gets under way from 6pm on July 21. Tickets range from £9-12 and they are available from 01296 653226.

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