As ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ is to ‘Hamlet’, so ‘To Hell in a Handbag’ is to ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. Following the misadventures of Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble that take place in the margins around Wilde’s play, Helen Norton and Jonathan White have crafted a pitch-perfect companion piece to the quintessential drawing room comedy. There is the same love of wit and wordplay, the same juxtaposition of manners and hypocrisy, and the same sense of increasingly absurd escalation building to a comic climax. If you love Wilde – and who doesn’t? – you’ll love this. Ironically, the only parts that were slightly less successful were the snippets of Wilde that played in voiceover during the scene changes.

Assembly Rooms, until 27 Aug.
tw rating 4/5 | [Andy Leask]