Some scenes from The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) and produced again at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, from November 21, 1923

    Some scenes from The Importance of Being Earnest written by the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) and produced again at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, from November 21, 1923, running for 61 performances.

   In the early revivals, the play was performed in present-day costume, and it wasn’t until the 1923 production at Theatre Royal Haymarket in the heart of the West End that it became fixed in its original 1890s setting (though some productions have experimented with contemporary settings or other time periods, such as the Swinging Sixties).

   Following the splendid, long-lived revival of The Importance of Being Earnest at the St James’s in 1909–10, the play had two more revivals there during Alexander’s tenure, in 1911 and 1913, as we have seen, but other actors played the roles of John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff even while Alexander as actor-manager maintained responsibility for the staging. Meanwhile, after his successful return to the role in 1909, the original portrayer of Algernon was far from being finished with the play. Allan Aynesworth would in good time take up a second theatrical career as a manager and producer (what Americans would call a "director"), while still sometimes playing major roles in the plays he staged. In 1923 he took the opportunity to mount a fresh revival of Wilde’s play at the Haymarket, which opened on 21 November and ran for sixty-one performances.

Leslie Faber (centre) as Jack, 1923 revival, with Louise Hampton as Miss Prism and H. O. Nicholson as Dr Chasuble

The Importance of Being Ernest at Haymarket Theatre, 1923

The Importance of Being Earnest at the Haymarket Theatre, 1924