Heady mix of philosophy, politics and witticisms

THE Henley Players’ next production looks at the evergreen subjects of damaged reputations in politics and maintaining marriage.

Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband is the story of politician, Sir Robert Chiltern, and his loving wife, Lady Chiltern. However, their happiness is put to the test when the manipulative Mrs Cheveley tries to blackmail him with secrets from his past. Enter Viscount Goring and his wise words…

Director John Timewell says: “The storyline is so relevant to today, even though it was written in 1895. It’s to do with integrity in political life.

“We expect politicians to be incorruptible and inevitably they don’t live up to our high expectations. The challenge that is put to the audience is to think about to what extent should a politician be held responsible for his or her actions that happened a long time ago, earlier in their career.

“It struck me, when I first read the play, that it is so relevant to today. The other major theme that I’ve really enjoyed working on is, what is your responsibility in marriage to be the ideal — and what is the role of forgiveness in marriage? That’s explored a lot in the play.

“We are playing exactly as period and I think the reflection on matrimonial love is an interesting theme. We are trying to make people think about the issues as modern issues as well as late Victorian issues.

“Okay, so there’s a happy ending but I’m not sure that the play leaves you with the answers to the questions that have been posed. I think those questions are still in your head when you emerge from the play. It’s delightful.”

Tom Rawlinson plays Sir Robert Chiltern, with Rowena McMenamin as Lady Chiltern. Gráinne Harling is Mrs Cheveley, Tim Harling is Viscount Goring, Jonathan Ralph is the Earl of Caversham and Julie Huntington is Lady Markby.

Jenny Haywood plays the Countess of Basildon, Pam Pitts-Simmons is Mrs Marchmont, Jemima Pettifer is Miss Mabel Chiltern and Mike Mungarvan plays Mason and Phipps. John adds: “It was during the early part of the run of the play that Wilde was arrested for gross indecency and it was taken off for a while.

“Even though it came back again and was highly successful, the author’s name was not put on any of the publicity, it was ‘By the author of Lady Windermere’s Fan’. But I think he had great affection for the play because he published it and wrote in an awful lot of stage directions and descriptions of characters that were not in the original.”

Tim Harling (Viscount Goring) says: “Basically Goring is a thinly veiled double for Oscar Wilde. So, he gets a lot of the Wilde-isms, he’s quite dandyish, well dressed and also he’s quite modern in the play. He’s almost railing against tradition and what is expected of people in those days, especially in the conversations that he has with his father, Lord Caversham, who basically wants him to settle down. I saw a comment that he was ‘the first well-dressed philosopher in history’, because he’s the one who speaks about love and forgiveness in a marriage.

“When he’s talking to Lady Chiltern, who he is very close to, he thinks that she has very hard moral standards. He’s trying to persuade her to be a bit more forgiving and this is before she even knows what Sir Robert has done in his past.

“You’ve got this loving marriage between Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern there, but by the end of it, they’ve got an understanding between each other, it’s a much more honest, loving and deeper relationship by the end of the play.

“The last Oscar Wilde play that we did was Lady Windermere’s Fan back in 2006, there’s another character in that which was Wilde writing himself into the play, called Cecil Graham and I played him.

“I think the beauty of Wilde’s writing is that it is incredibly current. Obviously it is talking about politics and there are serious points to be made, but it’s a lot of fun along the way.”

l The Henley Players present An Ideal Husband at the Kenton Theatre from Wednesday to Saturday, October 22 to 25 at 7.30pm, with a Saturday matinée at 2.30pm. Tickets for Wednesday and Thursday cost £20 adults, £19 students and seniors, Friday and Saturday evening all tickets cost £22 and the matinée is “pay what you want” (minimum £7.50). For more information, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit thekenton.org.uk