The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre review: Ncuti Gatwa stars in a fizzing production

Ncuti Gatwa (Algernon) in The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre - (Marc Brenner)

Feverish excitement greeted the casting of Doctor Who himself, Ncuti Gatwa, as Algernon in Oscar Wilde’s classic 1895 comedy, but he’s not the main draw in Max Webster’s fizzing, knockabout production. Don’t get me wrong: he’s charming and charismatic as the preening sybarite, tossing off witticisms as if they’re going out of fashion.

But his outrageousness feels effortful rather than easy in a staging that’s deliberately OTT. It opens with Gatwa in a cutaway pink ballgown amid an apparent orgy of drag queens and kings. Though things get tamer almost immediately, Webster still tips the text’s implicit gayness into a heavier display of sexual fluidity.