Oscar Wilde would have adored this chaos. Mistaken identity. Double lives. Social pretension. Air and graces. Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest has always been about performance. About whom we pretend to be. About the masks we wear to survive polite society.

So it feels deliciously inevitable that Say It Again, Sorry?’s smash Edinburgh hit …Earnest? turns the audience into the cast.

Direct from a sold-out Edinburgh Fringe run, this interactive Australian premiere at Adelaide Fringe begins as a “traditional” production. The set is in place. The tone is suitably Victorian. Everything appears on track.

Then Earnest doesn’t show up.

The first ten minutes can feel messy. Slow. Slightly chaotic. That’s by design. This is the hook being baited. The actor playing Earnest fails to arrive on cue. Panic sets in. The “director” storms on stage. The audience senses what is coming.

We are not watching Wilde. We are about to become Wilde.

The recasting is not a simple grab-the-first-hand-raised exercise. There is interrogation. Testing. A sly audition process. Who will be good value? Who has the inner performer itching to burst out?

  The smash hit Edinburgh Fringe comedy Earnest turns the audience into the cast Photo by Mark Senior
At last night’s show, an extroverted lawyer was enlisted as Earnest. He attempted to climb on stage barefoot and had to be instructed, mid-chaos, to put his sandals back on for Occupational Health and Safety reasons. Already, Wilde’s world of polite façades was cracking.

A strapping six-foot-three Scotsman out-auditioned a bald youth worker for the role of Cecily. The youth worker was later resurrected to paint. A bearded travel writer donned a purple gown. A purple-haired pianist emerged as an unexpected star. They all took bows at the end. And they deserved them.

Director and co-writer Simon Paris describes the show as an experiment in joyful chaos. 

For fans of The Play That Goes Wrong and Noises Off, the pleasure lies in watching a production teeter on collapse. Here, the stakes feel even higher. The performers on stage have not rehearsed. The improvisation is genuine. The laughter is earned.

It would be easy for a show like this to rely on one repeated gag. “Look, the audience are bad actors.” But …Earnest? avoids that trap. Care is taken to distribute the spotlight. Even those holding placards or stepping in for a single line feel momentarily heroic.

The humour is generous. Never cruel. And beneath the anarchy lies something sharper.

Wilde’s original play skewers ego, performance and the absurdity of social posturing. In this version, those themes gain fresh resonance. We watch ordinary audience members transform under lights. We see hidden talent. We see nerves. We see vanity. We see vulnerability.

  By the final bows the audience have become complicit in the madness Photo by Mark Senior
The show quietly suggests that the people beside us in the audience carry rich inner lives. The lawyer. The youth worker. The pianist. The traveller. Each holds a performer waiting to be invited.

It is theatre about theatre. About the creative industries. About the thrill and terror of stepping forward. About how fragile and thrilling live art can be.

By the final bows, the line between cast and audience has dissolved. We have all been complicit in the madness.

As late-night Fringe fare, …Earnest? feels destined for cult status. Like Shitfaced Shakespeare, it is a show that rewards the slightly tipsy crowd. The kind who have staggered in from Champagne Island, hoping to be chosen. 

The only quibble? The opening stretch could tighten by a minute or two. The chaos sometimes lingers just long enough for the energy to wobble before it finds its rhythm. But once the machine clicks, it roars.

This is Wilde reimagined for an era obsessed with participation. It honours the text while gleefully dismantling its formalities. And it reminds us of something simple. Everyone wants to be Earnest. Sometimes we just need someone to call us on stage.

…Earnest? is presented by Say It Again, Sorry? and runs until 22 March at The Peacock, Gluttony, as part of the 2026 Adelaide Fringe. Rymill Park Adelaide SA 5000.