A Woman of No Importance

The ex-Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe theatre, Dominic Dromgoole, adores classic British theatre. His new company Classic Spring is born of that enthusiasm, and its first offering is a season of four magnificent Oscar Wilde satires, namely A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere's Fan, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband. They're all performed at the Vaudeville theatre, exactly the kind of venue the plays were written for, beloved by proscenium playwrights like Wilde.

A Woman of No Importance premièred way back in the spring of 1893 at London's Haymarket theatre, but it still delights audiences to this day with its acid wit and fine line in satirical observations, typical Wilde and wonderfully, painfully funny. Like all of Wilde's so-called 'society plays' it satirises the British upper class brilliantly. What goes on? When an earnest young American woman, a permanently drunk, dodgy English lord and an innocent young chap attend a house party full of notorious gossips and snobs, nobody has any idea that there's a woman close hiding a terrible secret. It's totally, wickedly, wonderfully, heavenly stuff!