Verdict: Sweet, but still harrowing
Contrary to my persistent belief, Oscar Wilde did not say ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’.
It certainly sounds like him, but it was in fact a line from the much lesser-known Victorian man of letters, Charles Caleb Colton.
Even so, it was a sincere form of flattery — if not folly — for Yasmeen Khan to produce a pastiche of one of Wilde’s best-loved and most-quoted comedies, resetting it in modern ’uddersfield, the northern town that lost its initial letter.
Wilde’s original features a series of improbable mix-ups involving two men sharing the pseudonym Ernest. Khan replaces metropolitan young cards Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff with vain romcom actor Algy (Tom Dixon) and desperate out-of-work thesp Jamil (Gurjeet Singh).