Stephen Fry to play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest?

Posted on 18 January 2013

Stephen Fry in talks to perform at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Fresh of the back of an extremely successful performance alongside Mark Rylance in Twelfth Night at the Apollo, the Daily Mail reports that Stephen Fry is in talks to pay Lady Bracknell in a new West End production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers have been in talks with the actor for over a year and are hoping to stage the "handbags and gladrags" production at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
 
Opening at the Really Useful venue seems possible as there is a gap between Shrek The Musical closing in February and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory opening there in May.
 
Stephen Fry seems to have overcome the stage fright that kept him off the West End stage for almost two decades. 
 
Tim Carroll's Twelfth Night which transferred from the Globe to the Apollo Theatre has been shortlisted alongside the Olympic opening ceremony and the Globe to Globe season as the theatre event of the year at the Whatsonstage awards. The sell out production was a critical and audience success, completely selling out.
 
Describing Lady Bracknell, Stephen Fry told the Daily Mail, that he sees the character "as a little bit of Alastair Sim's Miss Fritton, clutching pearls; with a mixture of Stanley Baxter's Duchess of Brenda."