The action now opens with a prologue featuring a scantily-dressed Algernon Moncrieff (Elliott Pritchard for tonight’s performance in the absence of an indisposed Ncuti Gatwa) playing a piano in what appears to be a very very private gentleman’s club to amuse some very private gentlemen in a way Little Richard could only dream of.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. This is a farce that dares to speak its name. The closet door is wide open. In Act 3 two much larger than life male nude statues attract the attention of Jack Worthing (Hugh Skinner) who seems to have made a habit of stroking the breast of the left hand one. Cicely (Eliza Scanlen) attends closely to another part of the one on the right.

Both young ladies are very saucy. Cicely has already scared the horses with her prone bare-legged exercises in the garden and at the start of the last act her head emerges from under the conveniently well-bustled skirt of Gwendolen (Ronke Adekoluejo). Gwendolen herself has an explosive vocal range whose exact emotional register is impossible to determine.