50 Fun Facts About The Importance of Being Earnest

What is the subtitle of The Importance of Being Earnest?

Wilde originally had it the other way round, "a Serious Comedy for Trivial People", before flipping it in revision.

On what date in 1895 did the play open at the St James's Theatre?

Wilde arrived wearing a green carnation, and the audience rose and cheered again and again.

Which of Wilde's plays came directly before this one, making it the last of his four drawing-room comedies?

Both of his final comedies were still running in London when his prosecution began, and both soon closed.

Which two young women do the heroes woo under the name Ernest?

The other pairs come from Wilde's earlier comedies Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband and A Woman of No Importance.

What is the name of Algernon's invented invalid friend in the country?

Visiting him is a handy excuse to escape social obligations; the name may come from a hypochondriac acquaintance of Wilde's youth.

The cigarette case that exposes Jack's double life is inscribed with love from whom?

Algernon refuses to consent to Jack's proposal to Gwendolen until the case is explained.

Where was Jack found as a baby, according to his own account?

Lady Bracknell notes that the cloakroom was at least on the socially superior Brighton line side of the station.

What surname did Gwendolen's formidable mother carry in Wilde's early drafts?

Algernon Moncrieff was likewise Algernon Montford until Wilde revised the play over the summer of 1894.

Why does Gwendolen say she could not love Jack under his real name?

Cecily later agrees, pitying any married woman whose husband is not called Ernest, so both men plot to be rechristened.

What is the name of Cecily's governess?

Twenty-eight years earlier she had absent-mindedly swapped a baby for the manuscript of her novel.

Who is the rector at Woolton whom Algernon asks to rechristen him?

The scholarly canon ends the play paired off with Miss Prism.

How does Jack claim his brother Ernest died when he arrives in mourning in Act II?

The story collapses because Cecily has just met "Ernest", who is Algernon in disguise, in the garden.

What did the governess put in the perambulator instead of the baby?

The baby went into the handbag, which she left at Victoria Station.

Jack turns out to be the son of which relative of Lady Bracknell?

That makes him Algernon's elder brother and, at last, an acceptable suitor for Gwendolen.

Where does Jack look up his father's name to discover he really was christened Ernest?

As the firstborn he would have been named after his father, General Moncrieff.

What does Lady Bracknell call Jack in the closing lines?

She accuses him of displaying signs of triviality, and he replies that he has finally realised the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

In which Sussex seaside town did Wilde begin writing the play in the summer of 1894?

He borrowed the town's name for his hero, and may have found Bunbury in the local newspaper.

Which W. S. Gilbert farce is generally regarded as the play's most important influence?

Wilde borrowed incidents and, above all, the gravity of tone Gilbert demanded from his actors.

Which character was cut when the play was reduced from four acts to three?

He came from London to serve a writ on "Ernest" for unpaid Savoy dining bills; George Alexander asked for the cut.

Which actor-manager staged the premiere and played Jack?

Wilde had written the part for Wyndham, who gave it up so Alexander could recover from the failure of Henry James's Guy Domville.

What did the Marquess of Queensberry plan to throw at Wilde on the opening night?

Alexander cancelled his ticket and the police barred him; Queensberry left the bouquet at the theatre door.

Where was Wilde on holiday during most of the rehearsal period?

He was with Lord Alfred Douglas and returned for the dress rehearsal on 12 February.

What did Wilde wear in his lapel on opening night?

The Era predicted a long and prosperous run; within weeks the trials had begun.

Roughly how many performances did the original 1895 run last before Wilde's disgrace closed it?

Alexander even removed the author's name from the playbills, but the run ended on 8 May.

Which playwright called the play "extremely funny" but "heartless"?

He held the view all his life, insisting he went to the theatre to be moved to laughter, not tickled into it.

Which science-fiction novelist reviewed the play anonymously as one of the freshest comedies of the year?

Writing in The Pall Mall Gazette, he wondered how Serious People would take a Trivial Comedy intended for their learning.

W. H. Auden described the play as what in 1963?

The Times agreed the story was almost too preposterous to go without music; operas followed in 1963 and 2011.

What did the cover of the 1899 first edition say instead of Wilde's name?

Leonard Smithers published it while Wilde was in exile in Paris; he wrote nothing more for the stage.

In which language does the Ernest/earnest pun translate most simply?

Ernst is both the adjective for serious and a given name; Italian versions have tried Franco, Severo and Fedele.

Under what title is the play most often performed in French?

Constant is both a virtue and a first name, giving French a closer pun than most languages.

Wilde told Robbie Ross the play's theme was to treat trivial things how?

And, he added, to treat all the serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality.

According to Wilde's text, which food represents vice in the play?

Algernon devours the sandwiches meant for Lady Bracknell; the earlier plays had dealt in blackmail and real wrongdoing.

Algernon's imaginary invalid shares his name with a real village in which English county?

Aleister Crowley claimed the name fused Banbury and Sunbury after a railway assignation, a theory few take seriously.

Which actress's drawn-out delivery of "A handbag" became synonymous with the play?

She played Lady Bracknell for Gielgud in 1939 and on film in 1952, but never again on stage.

Who played Jack in the 1952 film directed by Anthony Asquith?

Denison was Algernon, Margaret Rutherford Miss Prism and Joan Greenwood Gwendolen.

Who directed the 2002 film starring Colin Firth and Rupert Everett?

Judi Dench played Lady Bracknell for the third time, after the 1982 National Theatre revival and a 1995 radio version.

Which American actress played Cecily in the 2002 film?

Frances O'Connor was Gwendolen, with Tom Wilkinson, Anna Massey and Edward Fox in support.

Which Australian actor played Lady Bracknell for the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2011?

Brian Bedford played her on Broadway the same year, and David Suchet took the role in London in 2015.

In Jonathan Miller's 1975 production, what unusual trait was Irene Handl's Lady Bracknell given?

Miller had wanted an all-male cast at the National the year before but was refused for financial reasons.

Who played Lady Bracknell in the 2025 West End transfer of the National Theatre's revival?

Sharon D. Clarke had the role in the original 2024 National run, opposite Ncuti Gatwa's Algernon.

Which journalist called the play the 'second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet'?

Max Beerbohm had earlier judged it Wilde's finest and most undeniably his own.

What sentence did Wilde receive after his conviction for gross indecency in May 1895?

It was the maximum penalty; from prison and exile came The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and he died in Paris in 1900.

Which Off-Broadway musical of 1960 was based on the play?

It grew out of an hour-long TV musical, Who's Earnest?, screened on The United States Steel Hour in 1957.

Which composer's opera of the play, commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, premiered in 2011?

Erik Chisholm had written an earlier operatic version in 1963, using Wilde's text as the libretto.

Which Henry James play flopped at the St James's in 1895, making room for Wilde's comedy?

George Alexander's production closed after 31 performances, leaving him in urgent need of a new play.

Which actor-manager did Wilde have in mind when writing the part of John Worthing?

The role ended up going to George Alexander, who staged the premiere at his own St James's Theatre.

How many performances did the play's original 1895 Broadway production manage at the Empire Theatre?

It opened on 22 April 1895, in the very weeks of Wilde's trials; Charles Frohman's 1902 revival finally restored the author's name to the playbills.

In which English county is the fictitious village of Woolton, setting of Act II, placed?

Cecily studies there with Miss Prism in the garden of the Manor House while Algernon arrives posing as Ernest.

Who played Lady Bracknell to Gielgud's Jack at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in 1930?

Terry-Lewis was Gielgud's aunt; Evans and Rutherford joined his famous 1939 staging at the Globe as Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism.

Who played Lady Bracknell in Peter Hall's 1982 National Theatre production?

Martin Jarvis, Nigel Havers and Zoë Wanamaker co-starred; Dench played the role again for Radio 4's 1995 centenary broadcast and in the 2002 film.