That's no Lady, but it's fine by me
The last place Charles Spencer expected to see a top-notch production of the very English play The Importance of Being Earnest was in New York.
By Charles Spencer 9:42AM GMT 14 Feb 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/8322723/Thats-no-Lady-but-its-fine-by-me.htmlIt is probably not possible to find absolute perfection in this sublunary world, but Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest comes tantalisingly close.
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This is all the more surprising because Lady Bracknell is played by a chap – Bedford himself, indeed, a British actor and former classmate of Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole at Rada, who has spent much of his career in America and Canada.
Gender-bending in The Importance is nothing new, of course. There was an all-male production at the National Theatre in 1967, and Hinge & Bracket notoriously played Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism in drag.