Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
July 20, 2018

With a play like An Ideal Husband, little more than just saying Oscar Wilde’s witty, insightful words is required for success. Add a good cast and beautiful costumes, and with any luck it will be a hit. Melbourne Theatre Company’s new production may well be just that, especially if the comic star power of Gina Riley as Lady Markby draws in the TV crowd. Arguably she and a few others try to do more with the scintillating dialogue than is necessary, but for a fun few hours of theatre, this is hard to beat.

Gina Riley and Simon Gleeson. Photograph © Jeff Busby

Premiering in London in 1895, An Ideal Husband explores public and private honour. Sir Robert Chiltern seems to have it all – wealth, a soaring political career, an adoring wife – until Mrs Cheveley appears. She blackmails him with a letter that reveals his success to be based on an act that was as dishonourable as it was criminal. His world hangs in the balance, not least his marriage, because the virtuous Lady Chiltern’s love for him is based on her belief that he...