FOUR STARS

 

Thanks chiefly to the inspired casting of Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde, a play once considered one of the few failures of its writer David Hare is now recognisable as a work of near genius.

The Almeida’s first production 15 years ago was neither a commercial nor a critical success. Hare himself thought Liam Neeson miscast as Wilde and called the first act “a bloody mess” in the published edition of the text.

While he was possibly right about Leeson, his mistake over Act I is evident from the stunning revival which makes use, as far as one can judge, of the very same script.

From the mouth of Everett the words sound different, I suspect, because they sound so like the utterances of Wilde. Wisely, perhaps, Sir David drew the line at incorporating lines lifted from the celebrated wit. What he supplies is wit of his own devising, whose often mordant tone reflects the predicament faced by Wilde.

The first section finds him resident in the Cadogan Hotel, with the disastrous libel action against Lord Queensberry just over and his own criminal prosecution, arising from indecencies uncovered by the marquess, imminent.

His solid, good-sort friend Robert Ross (Cal MacAninch) is among those urging him to flee at once to France to evade the forces of the law.

But his manipulative lover, Queensberry’s youngest son Lord Alfred Douglas, is determined to see him fight the case. And what he says generally goes. The selfish petulance of the aristocrat is perfectly caught in the excellent performance by Freddie Fox.

From its jokey start, with snatched rumpy-pumpy between eager young hotel servants (Ben Hardy and Kirsty Oswald), the action moves ineluctably towards the arrest we know is coming.

The second half of the play is set in Naples, whither Wilde and Douglas have travelled following the former’s two years in jail.

Hare takes us to a shabby hotel room, where Bosie lazes in bed with an obliging local fisherman called Galileo (Tom Colley). “Can you ask him: is there any chance of a red mullet?” quips Wilde. “It would be nice for the whole household to profit from the encounter.”

His tone towards his friend is playful and affectionate, though he recognises by now he has been cynically used by Bosie in his endless war against Queensberry.

It says much for Hare’s skilful writing, and the brilliantly nuanced performances of Everett and Fox (under director Neil Armfield) that the subtleties in this doomed relationship stand starkly revealed.

Duke of York’s Theatre, London Until April 6 Box office: 0844 871 7623 thejudaskiss.co.uk