Vengeance: The Demise of Oscar Wilde – Esher Theatre, Surrey and Touring

Vengeance: The Demise of Oscar Wilde at Esher Theatre, Surrey, then touring until 3 March 2022.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

The terrible revenge taken by the Marquess of Queensberry on the most celebrated playwright of his era, Oscar Wilde, for seducing his handsome son and practising “the love that dare not speak its name” is turned into a new play-with-music by husband-and-wife team John Merrigan and Danielle Morgan that’s never less than watchable.

Starting a five-venue spring tour at Esher Theatre, a welcome addition to the Surrey town’s amenities which deserves better support, it is a fresh take by author Merrigan on the 1895 scandal that rocked London and brought an abrupt end to the career of a genius then at the peak of his fame when The Importance of Being Earnest, his greatest success, was making him even more the toast of society.

While full credit to Merrigan for the research and scholarship he has put into this project which was inspired by his mother’s great love of Wilde’s work, it is the importance placed on being so earnest and factually precise that makes the finished article feel more like a history lesson than a piece of entertainment.

It needs some of Wilde’s famed epigrams to leaven up the sudden, tragic demise of the flamboyant Irish playwright. After all, Oscar’s performance in the witness box when he sued Queensberry for slander is reported to have been full of bons mots, but his biting wit is hard to find here.

One of the problems is that Wilde’s fall from the pinnacle because of his infatuation with the narcissistic ‘Bosie’ has been so well documented that it is difficult to make drama out of an ending we know in advance, but the novelty of this version are singer-songwriter Morgan’s music and lyrics.

Well crafted though the songs are, to me they do not take the story forward, and while appreciating that they flesh out, in particular, the two women in Wilde’s life (his strong mother Speranza and humiliated wife Constance), are they such a great idea?

With the three main characters all unloveable, especially the apoplectic bully Queensberry and his fey son who spent Wilde’s money as fast as he made it, it is left to David Keogh as Robbie Ross, Wilde’s previous lover but forever a genuine friend, to be the one male we are rooting for. Playing the Narrator as well as himself, he copes with practised ease.

Ross Scarfield as Edward Carson, the barrister and one-time college friend who warned Wilde that taking his action to court would be madness, knowing the Marquess had rent boys lined up to testify against him, impresses in his ‘Damn The Man’ monologue. Biz Lyon also does well both as Lady Wilde and Madame Dupoirier, the owner of the faded little Paris hotel who cared for Oscar during his self-imposed exile until his early death.

Riley Clark is in fine voice as Oscar – he looks the part too in a well-costumed production – and makes the most of ‘I Want More Than This’ and ‘How Does It Feel?’ while ‘Starry-Eyed’ and ‘So Excited ‘ also pay tribute to Morgan’s gift with words and music. But not everyone is on top of the material.

John Newcombe (Queensberry), Will Burren (Bosie), Martina Greenwood (Constance), Sonny Jaiteh and Matteo Mikkelsen complete the cast of nine and director Tracy Collier will be keen for cues to be picked up a bit more speedily as the tour goes on and confidence grows.

The nine-strong orchestra under musical director Joseph Carter plays faultlessly – lush strings and flute and clarinet particularly pleasing – and a word too for the excellent programme with informative notes not only about cast and creatives, as you would expect, but also background to the characters themselves.

Yet, while never less than interesting, if Vengeance is to move on from a labour of love to commercial success, there is still work to be done.

Jeremy Chapman