Born to be Wilde again

To the Harold Pinter theatre, where Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was reimagined by director Lucy Bailey. The cast play amateur actors rehearsing a production of the comic farce in a living room — Nigel Havers, pictured with Cherie Lunghi, forgets to take off his Nike trainers and Martin Jarvis uses the set change to check the cricket score.

Lunghi plays a woman trying to relive her dramatic career. When she is being fitted on stage and the dress doesn’t fit, she is furious. “I’ve not put on weight, it has shrunk,” she insists, then storms off. “This would never happen at The National.”

We trust she is less of a diva in real life.