The Importance of Being Oscar ★★★★

In this day and age, we all feel we should know everything about the celebrities that market themselves via social media. In the past, the famous and talented lived in a different spotlight, illuminated by articles in magazines and exposés in newspapers. Irish-born poet, author and playwright Oscar Wilde was one such person. A man who enjoyed his celebrated genius and the dazzling transatlantic social circles that he found himself within, but also the infamy of incarceration for gross indecency during the Victorian era. The Park Theatre, a stone’s throw away from Finsbury Park Station in North London, is currently home for Micheál Mac Liammóir‘s Wilde-fest The Importance of Being Oscar. Directed by Michael Fentiman, one-time Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, this one-man drama promises a show that will “redefine our attitudes and appreciation of a man whose life became his work of art”. So, we all think we know Oscar Wilde, but do we really? Can this production actually give us a better understanding of him, his creativity and his motivations?

Born in London as Alfred Willmore, the show’s writer Micheál Mac Liammóir identified as Irish and, along with his partner Hilton Edwards, founded Dublin’s Gate Theatre. There are many similarities between the playwrights, although Mac Liammóir was born a year before Wilde’s death in Paris. He, like Wilde, enjoyed his celebrity as a witty raconteur and his position as one of Ireland’s greatest dramatists. He was also an outstanding actor, and directed by Edwards, he first performed this one-man show in Dublin in 1960 to much acclaim. Now Alastair Whatley offers his finely honed homage in London in 2026, crafted over many months of touring the show around the UK’s small theatres, to similar plaudits.

Madeleine Girling‘s set and costumes are simple but effective. The same can be said of Ben Jacob‘s clever lighting design and Barnaby Race‘s low-key sound scheme. As the tinkling piano music stops and house lights go out, from the darkness we see two large rings of LEDs, one horizontal set into the black circular rostrum and the other attached like a figure of eight rising vertically to the rear. Whatley climbs onto the stage to the archived sound of Mac Liammóir himself reciting Wilde’s words. Dressed in a burnt orange corduroy three-piece suit with a high-collared shirt and silk neckerchief, he stands tall like a naked flame within the white ring of light, clutching a green carnation, referencing his personal connection with the works of both writers, and then stepping physically into Mac Liammóir’s drama. What follows is a narrated and affectionate summary of the highs and then lows of the literary legend. Much of it is based on the writings and musings of Wilde, taking its words from his poems, plays, letters and book, and combining them with well-known biographical details, such as reports from his trial in London and those of close friends who witnessed the effect on him. Encapsulating Wilde’s life and work within two hours, including an interval, Mac Liammóir, through Whatley’s sensitive and artful acting, showcases Wilde’s love of people and his talent with words; his keen intellect and wit as well, as the controversies and conflicts. The first half reveals his path to glory and the second his fall into ignominy, using played-out excerpts from An Ideal Husband, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Renowned theatre director Michael Fentiman has given Whatley enough guidance to rein in any tendency to caricature Wilde on this stage, so we do not see a flamboyant, well-trodden portrayal of the great man. Instead, he allows Whatley, the driver in this production, to explore the wit and ambiguity of Wilde’s words with far less flourish. There are few swaggering, sweeping gestures, and the physicalities of all the characters seem contained on the small stage, so this production doesn’t feel as energetic or modern as some of Fentiman’s other shows. Multi-character one-man pieces can get confusing for the audience, but the combination of Whatley’s experience and connection with his subject, the play’s linear storytelling, subtle alterations in body language and voice, and some smart colour changes of the LED rings mean that this play is easy to follow, delivering home its message that Wilde saw his entire life as being his ultimate work of art. Its strength lies in Whatley’s ability to move between all the characters and bring them back to life seamlessly. Whatley’s poignant delivery of Wilde’s many well-known words, especially those bitter ones written from his gaol cell to his lover, is both astute and forlorn. He seizes his stage, delivers a nuanced and commanding performance, and, meanwhile, has the audience marvelling at his capacity to remember all his lines.

This affectionate and straightforward production is absorbing and clever. In The Importance of Being Oscar, the wit and insightful observations of Wilde shine through, and Whatley beautifully portrays all his characters plus their subtle affectations with aplomb. We get to see Wilde’s joyous and tragic lived experience and how it informed his work in such a manner that we feel we understand this illustrious creative outcast more intimately than before entering the theatre.