The Importance of Being Earnest

Jack Worthing leads a double-life.

In the country, he is the respectable guardian of his ward, Cecily Cardew. In town, he is Ernest, Jack’s fictional and disreputable younger brother. When “Ernest” comes up to town to propose to Gwendolyn, his friend Algernon Moncrieff exposes his deceit, only to then assume the guise of Ernest himself when he takes a trip into the countryside to court Cecily.

When Jack and Algernon’s Ernest-ness is taken all too seriously, Cecily and Gwendolen find themselves engaged to the same fictional fiancée. Can the lovers untangle this confection of fake IDs while satisfying Lady Bracknell’s exacting criteria for marital eligibility? Will Reverend Chasuble ever be called upon to christen? Might Cecily’s governess, the prim Miss Prism, surprise them all with a secret of her own?

In an anarchic, anachronistic and Antipodean take on the Comedy of Manners, Queensland Theatre’s Year 12 Young Artists Ensemble bring their youthful exuberance to bear on the verbal wit and absurdity of Oscar Wilde’s much-beloved 1895 classic.