REVIEW: An Ideal Husband - St Luke's Theatre Society

An Ideal Husband

Presented by: St Luke’s Theatre Society

Date Attended: 28 August 2026

Written by: Oscar Wilde

Director: Matthew Hobbs

Set Design: Susan Hobbs

Lighting Design: Sean Doran

Photography: Dia Holt

“An ideal husband! Oh, I don't think I should like that.”

Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband proves that putting anybody on a pedestal is a bad idea. Sooner or later, they’ll wobble, say something foolish, get tangled in a scandal, or turn out to have committed fraud. Hopefully not all four...

An Ideal Husband is a story about political corruption, blackmail, marriage, reputation, and the impossible standards we place upon people we admire. Surrounding all of that is Wilde doing what Wilde does best: filling a room with wealthy Victorians, arming them with wit, and letting them verbally attack one another for a few hours.

Sir Robert Chiltern (Alex Thompson) appears to have everything. He’s affluent, successful, respected, and married to the deeply principled Lady Gertrude Chiltern (Elaina Mullins), who considers her husband practically incapable of moral wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Robert’s rise to success began with a decision from his younger years that was... well... considerably less honourable.

Then Mrs Cheveley (Sophie Parker) struts onto the scene like she owns the place. She knows what Robert did, she has evidence, and she would very much like to use it. From there, we’re dealing with blackmail, missing jewellery, old school grudges, romantic assumptions, mistaken identities, and enough secrets to keep Victorian society gossiping for weeks. Meanwhile, Lord Arthur Goring (Giorgio Impiccini) repeatedly finds himself in the middle of everybody else’s problems (despite initially appearing to be one of the least useful men in London).

Alex Thompson anchors the higher stakes of the story as Robert. Plenty of people around him are allowed to revel in Wilde’s ridiculousness, but Robert’s predicament needs to appear genuinely stressful. And Thompson makes sure it does! He wears the guilt across his face before his character can ever comfortably put it into words. There’s immediate anxiety around Cheveley, fear over what exposure could do to his marriage, and the creeping realisation that his immaculate public identity could disintegrate very quickly. He’s particularly convincing as a husband caught between these two very different women. Cheveley knows exactly where to apply pressure and enjoys doing it. Gertrude, meanwhile, has no idea how much pressure she’s applying at all.

Elaina Mullins plays Mrs Gertrude Chiltern with sweetness, composure, and genuine devotion. Gertrude hasn’t simply married a man she loves. In her mind, she’s married a morally impeccable one. Mullins lets us see how deeply that belief is woven into her affection for him, so when Robert falls from that pedestal, there’s a real sense of her entire emotional framework shifting with him.

Mrs Laura Cheveley has no interest whatsoever in making anybody’s life easier. Sophie Parker makes her a fabulous queen bee nemesis, playing Laura with deliberately slow pacing, a siren gaze in her eyes, and a venomous edge in her voice. Parker wears the character’s malice in her knowing smiles and carries herself like a woman who’s completely aware of everybody’s weakest point. Her history with Gertrude adds another layer. We learn that they are old school acquaintances who clearly did not leave their dislike of one another in the schoolyard. Every civil exchange carries a little sting underneath it, and Cheveley seems to relish every second she has the upper hand.

Then there is Lord Arthur Goring. Giorgio Impiccini gets many of Wilde’s best lines and makes excellent use of them, with crisp comic timing and a wonderfully matter-of-fact delivery. He carries himself with the easy confidence of a man who has never had to worry too much about anything, adding little looks and reactions that make his self-importance even funnier. Arthur says baffling things with tremendous conviction, dresses extravagantly, puts his foot in his mouth, and somehow ends up responsible for untangling everybody else’s mess. Impiccini also finds the warmth of a loyal friend. When Robert faces humiliation and possible ruin, Arthur’s immediate instinct is to help him. He doesn’t spend the evening delivering moral lectures or recoiling in disappointment. He rolls up his frivolous sleeves and gets involved!

Nigel Munro-Wallis, portraying Arthur’s very proper father, Lord Caversham, creates some of the show's most biggest laughs. Caversham seems permanently dissatisfied with his son, while Arthur remains impressively resistant to his dad's disapproval. Munro-Wallis nails the dry wit perfectly. He doesn’t need to chase the punchlines because Caversham’s constant exasperation is funny enough. The frequent chuckles from the audience whenever father and son faced off proved that the actors' pairing was landing exactly as intended.

Maya Cranny’s Mabel Chiltern occupies the same gloriously unserious corner of society as Arthur. She’s playful, self-important, a bit childlike, and entirely convinced of her own opinions. Naturally, she and Arthur make perfect sense together. Their scenes offer a lighter counterpoint to the Chilterns' marriage. Robert and Gertrude are wrestling with whether love can survive imperfection. Arthur and Mabel seem perfectly happy to begin with imperfection and save themselves the time in therapy. Cranny has some terrific facial reactions too, and I wished she’d open her positioning a little further so those expressions weren’t hidden by her hair or angle to the audience.

Natalie Pedler appears as the highly sociable Lady Markby, chattering enough to sustain a drawing-room conversation indefinitely. Savarnah Cruck and June Balfour, as Mrs Mason and Phipps, round out the household with the appropriate formality and restraint, helping maintain the proper world surrounding all this improper behaviour.

Matthew Hobbs’ direction handles the script’s shifting moods comfortably. Robert and Gertrude carry the marital stakes, Cheveley keeps the danger simmering, and Goring, Mabel, and Caversham are usually nearby to puncture the seriousness before anything becomes unbearably solemn. There’s a lot of dialogue here (Wilde was hardly shy of a sentence), but the conversation moves at a comfortable clip for most of the performance. Wilde also very good at convincing us the story is nearly finished. A crisis resolves. A loose end appears tied. Everyone can surely go home now... Nope. Somebody enters with another piece of information, another secret wriggles free, and off we go again.

Visually, the production creates an attractive world, with the warm drawing-room setting and formal costumes supporting all those ideas of wealth, status, and respectability. Susan Hobbs’ set fills the room with cosy details and ornate furnishings, providing exactly the sort of polished home in which one should absolutely not be discussing blackmail. A few garments would benefit from a good steaming, and some of the women’s hairstyling could use a little extra finishing to match the tidier presentations. And where their tattoos are being concealed, I think lace or evening gloves could sit more naturally within the period styling than the visible bandaging.

I’d also encourage a more physical freedom from Gertrude and Mabel during their heightened moments. Their vocal delivery is extremely assured, but both can occasionally look stiff through the body. Anger, distress, excitement, and disbelief all invite a reaction beyond the voice, so allowing those feelings to travel more freely through posture and gesture would help the emotional shifts register even more clearly.

Politics hums underneath this piece. Robert’s career was built upon reputation, ambition, influence, and the expectation that a respected public figure must somehow possess an immaculate private history as well. More than a century after Wilde wrote the play, that aspect of the script requires very little assistance to remain recognisable... People fail. People lie. People make choices they regret. People disappoint their fathers by becoming unmarried bachelors who talk nonsense to themselves....

For audiences who enjoy wit, period comedy, scheming, and characters who can turn an insult into an art form, St Luke’s Theatre Society’s An Ideal Husband is very easy to recommend. And after an evening with Wilde’s characters, I’m inclined to agree with Mabel...

An ideal husband does sound terribly dull.