The importance of being earnest and four other plays (2003)

Start this collection with The Importance of Being Earnest and hear the exchanges as a performance. Wilde turns marriage interviews, family credentials and the need to appear respectable into exquisitely timed nonsense. The pleasure is the speed with which a confident sentence can undermine the speaker. Its social satire lands particularly well once polite conversation has become part of everyday adult life; the other plays offer more to explore.