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Doctor Who helps give Oscar Wilde's national treasure a witty reboot: PATRICK MARMION reviews The Importance of Being Earnest

Astonishingly, this is only the second time the National Theatre has staged Oscar Wilde's famously 'trivial comedy for serious people'.

Its nigh-on three-hour duration can feel like a recitation from the Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations, thanks to lines that range from 'the truth is rarely pure and never simple' to the giddy 'the suspense is terrible, I hope it will last'. There's a good stand-off between maid Constance (Chloe Ragrag) and spy Milady (Charlotte Price), while Perry Moore's consonants as the scheming Cardinal are colder and more cutting than the blades. In a show with costumes designed by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and upbeat songs by Lee Freeman and Mark Anderson, 'D'Arty' (George Shuter) comes to Paris to avenge his musketeer father, and gets caught up in another necklace subterfuge.

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