The Importance of Being ... well, just being.

Last night I went to see The Importance of Being Earnest, one of my favourite plays - in fact, one which I practically consider to be my own, having been in it twice (more later).

To begin with, I just couldn't get my head around this version of it. The first act was louche and lewd, and I really could not fathom the disconnect between the content and context of the play and what was going on before our eyes on the stage. Why would anyone, for instance, still be bothered about getting Mama's permission to marry when they could openly grope their intended in front of a room full of people, dressed in a tranny-type of PVC mini-dress? The two ages - this and Oscar Wilde's - just didn't fit together to me. I was probably somewhat affected, too, by the prospect of having to explain to my daughter just what they were chopping and snorting, chucking down their throats, or unzipping on each other. It was a loss of innocence -for both of us.

I don't know if the glass of wine in the interval changed my perspective, though, because I just loved the second half. The acting was rapier-sharp and I'm sure just as Wilde would have intended, and the laughs rolled over the audience in tinkling waves. Laurel Devenie as Cecily was hilarious, and the denouement was delivered so brilliantly that I was actually holding my breath to hear the outcome even though I know the play back to front.

And that's when I realised what my problem had been: I'd gone in with EXPECTATIONS. Instead of accepting this was going to be a whole lot different to any performance of the play that I'd ever seen before (and there have been many), and that would be the joy of it, I sat down expecting to see a direct reproduction of Edith Evans or even Judy Dench, and it took a while to let those thoughts be jostled out of one ear while the freshness and humour of this version entered via the other.

As mentioned, I've actually been in the play twice, first at grammar school and then at Sixth Form College. Both times I was Lady Bracknell. At the time I hoped and dared to believe that it was because I had enough dramatic gravitas to carry off the part. In hindsight, the truth was probably far less flattering. I was at an all-girl's secondary school, and wasn't one of the petite pretty pixie ones who got chosen for the female leads. I always played men or old women. Not that I minded - I got some pretty juicy parts out of it (Lady B, Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Sir Peter Teazle in School for Scandal) but just once it would have been nice to skip on stage in a flouncy dress. I guess I was Lady Bracknell again at Sixth Form for the same reasons, and because I'd done it before so it wouldn't take long to learn my lines. My boyfriend at the time played Jack/Ernest while I was his overbearing, wrinkly mother-in-law to be; we broke up not long afterwards and I couldn't help wondering if he got a nasty flash-forward moment and decided then and there that the prospect was unbearable.

What I realised last night was that Lady Bracknell has truckloads of fairly unpalatable lines with the odd gem thrown in, and anyone who can make light of them and cause them to zing even a little deserves applause. Maybe I didn't do such a bad job of it after all.

On top of that, I understood myself a bit better. I'd brought all my past along to this production, and it wasn't until I chucked it out along with my Pringles packet during the interval that I gave this production the attention and courtesy it deserved.

It's fab. Go and see it. And if you're old-school English as I discovered I am, have a glass of wine before you go in. Relax, dude, and have some fun with it.