...Earnest? - Udderbelly Underbelly George Square Gardens - Edinburgh Fringe Review

Back at the Edinburgh Fringe for the fifth time due to phenomenal demand, Say It Again Sorry’s ‘… Earnest?’ Continues to deliver its unique and boldly brave style of interactive theatre where audience interaction is taken to the extreme in an hilarious laugh out loud retelling of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.

When the leading man fails to make his appearance as Earnest, leaving Terry as Algernon (Ashley Cavender) and Graham as Lane (Rhys Tees) flummoxed, it is up to director Simon Slough (played by Josh Haberfield) to fill in the gap. But if he took on the role, who would direct? Instead, he turns to the audience to find a willing volunteer to be his new star. But as the play progresses and more of the cast begin to fall for a variety of different reasons, could audience cast members begin to outnumber them?

Fresh from their second UK Tour and with the fringe production moving into the famous Underbelly Purple Cow, Say It Again Sorry are flying and thriving as they continue to prove that they are at the absolute top of their game when it comes to working with an audience, improvisation, comedic timing and creating a magical sense of cleverly organised chaos. As more and more audience members are brought on stage, the cast make it look easy to perform with, and create theatrical brilliance with, people who are led by only a few scraps of script being thrown their way. There is never a moment of thinking that things are spiralling out of control, and, whilst it may be far from the traditional ‘Importance of Being Earnest’, the main threads of the story remain firmly in place.

With the majority of the cast playing dual characters, each playing a performer playing an Earnest role, there is many an opportunity for hilarity. Cavender’s Terry, playing the ever confident and bold Algernon, is thrown headfirst into the deep end with his new audience member scene partner as he simply cannot improvise and must stick to his blocking, with highly amusing and at time shocking results. Rhy’s Tees’ Graham as Lane and Merriman is desperately trying to hold it together, whilst Trynity Silk’s Jen as Gwendoline has a mishap with some stage whiskey and Judith Amsenga’s Eleanor as Lady Bracknell has some unique ways of dealing with the ever-growing chaos. And that is before you include the trouble caused by Brendan Barclay’s George. Haberfield’s director Simon is trying his best to lead the way, his temper fraying with each incident as he tends to take his anger out on thestage manager Josh, played by Ben Mann. It is Mann as Josh who quickly wins the heart of the audience, with them cheering him throughout and laughing greatly as he tries to lead them in helping the Earnest out with a genius use of cue cards.

Between the Fringe runs and the UK Tours, the show has gone through a number of changes and with this version needing to fit the hour and ten-minute schedule, a number of moments have been cut from the touring show, but this doesn’t take away from the fun chaos and overall enjoyment factor, with nothing feeling as if it was missing.

It is incredibly impressive to see how the cast are able to work with the audience members, to make them feel as comfortable as possible in a perfect balance of bedlam and planning. They can never know exactly what is going to happen, as the audience members could say and no literally anything, but they take it all in the stride. The occasional look of surprise and bewilderment may appear on their faces, along with a giggle here and there, but that is all a part of the fun and a part of this company’s style.

After a number of sell out shows, I believe that the future is incredibly bright for this company and for ‘…Earnest?’. Watch this space, the West End may be calling their name.