Film: Choice

The Importance of Being Earnest, NFT, London SE1 (0171-928 3232)

You would have to be about 110 years old to have seen the original production of Wilde's abiding comic masterpiece and be able to remember anything about it. It was 1895, after all. Whatever the first actress made of the pivotal role of Lady Bracknell has been lost to history in favour of the extraordinary interpretation by Dame Edith Evans, a gloriously absurd alliance between the haughtiest of camels, a gobbling turkey and a milliner's shop. Happily, it was immortalised on record and on film but all subsequent Bracknells have languished in its inescapable shadow, particularly the imperious upward swoop from basso profundo to quivering soprano on the word "handbag". It takes a woman of considerable character to pull off this most Wagnerian of Wilde roles, so who better than Coral Browne (above) in a rarely screened BBC production from 1974.