THE TELEGRAPH
Domenic Cavendish writes: ‘Stephen Fry is a gender-bending delight as Lady Bracknell in of Oscar Wilde’s theatrical masterpiece…
‘Clad in garish bustle-dresses, Fry, 68, lends his intellectual fluency and towering presence to Wilde’s verbally pyrotechnic and subtly anarchic script…
‘He doesn’t attempt much female impersonation, and instead gives us the crisp, snooty essence of Lady B: demanding, commanding, formidable. This is a stately, mannish creature with pursed lips and a withering stare…
‘Olly Alexander endears himself as a camply impish Algernon – the man of leisure who makes a bee-line from town to country to size up Cecily, the pretty ward of his foundling pal Jack.’
THE GUARDIAN
David Jays writes: ‘Following the granite Sharon D Clarke as Lady Bracknell comes Stephen Fry, plumptiously upholstered in deep purple and emerald and crowned by imperious steel-grey curls.
‘It can be galling when male actors take prime female roles, but the casting suits this super-gay reading.’
DAILY MAIL
Patrick Marmion writes: ‘Was ever an actor more obviously born to play a role?
‘It was surely only a matter of time before Fry should take to the stage as one of Wilde’s most colourful characters – Lady Bracknell – in the gloriously frivolous and endlessly quotable romcom, The Importance Of Being Earnest.
‘It’s a joyfully exuberant production’.
THE TIMES
Clive Davis writes: ‘Stephen Fry drowns in camp. The actor is perfectly fine as Lady Bracknell but this relentlessly slapstick take on Oscar Wilde pushes a classic comedy to breaking point.
‘Max Webster’s ultra-camp take on Oscar Wilde’s witticisms is so loud, he might as well have given the actors megaphones: almost every line is delivered with a shriek, a shout or an elbow dug into the audience’s ribs.
‘It’s fun at first, but by the end you begin to feel bruised.
‘At the National last November I was willing to give the venture the benefit of the doubt. The new cast for this transfer to the Noël Coward Theatre, with Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell, isn’t so easy to warm to.
‘Fry is perfectly fine as the grand old lady (the audience gave him a round of applause when he made his first entrance), but he hasn’t yet acquired the hauteur of the Caribbean matron that Sharon D Clarke brought to the South Bank.’
THE STANDARD
Nick Curtis penned: ‘Fluting, acerbic, but also surprisingly warm, Stephen Fry’s Lady Bracknell is the trump card of Max Webster’s hyper-camp reading of Oscar Wilde’s peerless comedy.
‘Handsomely remounted in the West End with a new cast, the show feels more effortful, more try-hard, than it did at the National last November. Until Fry’s two appearances, that is.
‘Resplendent in purple or emerald organza, he cruises on stage like a bustle-clad battleship, firing witticisms into the audience with devastating accuracy.
‘There was understandable harrumphing when it was announced yet another man had been cast in one of the great female roles.
‘But Fry is a Wilde expert, possessed of exquisite comic timing and modulation. His precision shows up the tendency of some other cast members to gabble.’
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
But the new cast bring different energies within that framework. Alexander is wonderfully mischievous and sharp as Algie, frequently acknowledging that the audience is in on the act.
‘And then there is Fry, whose Lady Bracknell, upholstered like a Victorian furniture shop on the move, puts the imp into imperious.
‘A towering presence, high and haughty, he rolls the redoubtable battleaxe’s famous lines around his mouth like marbles before thrusting them into the room. Fry’s love of wordplay comes into its own here — there’s a relish to his savouring of Wilde’s dialogue that is irresistible’
LONDON THEATRE
Olly Alexander and Stephen Fry are a delight in this colourful, giddily subversive comedy.
Donning Lady Bracknell’s richly upholstered gowns, Stephen Fry boasts the circularity having played the author himself in the 1997 film and continues the sporadic tradition of the role being played as an elevated panto dame.
In full regalia, he resembles the great Hermione Gingold in, but he doesn’t ham it up and remains grounded, beginning in a fairly mellow mood and building up to the crescendo of “A handbag?”.