The play, celebrated for its wit and repartee, parodies contemporary dramatic norms, gently satirises late Victorian manners, and introduces – in addition to the two pairs of young lovers – the formidable Lady Bracknell, the fussy governess Miss Prism and the benign and scholarly Canon Chasuble.

The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, unsuccessfully schemed to throw a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the playwright at the end of the performance.

After the first production, which featured George Alexander, Allan Aynesworth and Irene Vanbrugh among others, many actors have been associated with the play, including Mabel Terry-Lewis, John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Margaret Rutherford, Martin Jarvis, Nigel Havers and Judi Dench.

The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for radio from the 1920s onwards and for television since the 1930s, filmed for the cinema on three occasions (directed by Anthony Asquith in 1952, Kurt Baker in 1992 and Oliver Parker in 2002) and turned into operas and musicals.

Jack produces the same handbag, showing that he is the lost baby, the eldest son of Lady Bracknell's late sister, Mrs Moncrieff, and thus Algernon's elder brother.

As the happy couples embrace – Ernest and Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, and even Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism – Lady Bracknell complains to her newfound relative: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality".

[18] The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr Gribsby, a solicitor who comes from London to serve a writ on the profligate "Ernest" Worthing for unpaid dining bills at the Savoy Hotel.

[43] In contrast with much theatre of the time, the light plot of The Importance of Being Earnest does not address serious social and political issues, and this troubled some contemporary reviewers.

[49] H. G. Wells, in an unsigned review for The Pall Mall Gazette, called the play one of the freshest comedies of the year, saying, "More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it would be difficult to imagine".

Alexander revived it in the small Coronet theatre in Notting Hill, outside the West End, in December the following year,[60] after taking it on tour, starring as John Worthing, with a cast that included the young Lilian Braithwaite as Cecily.

[71] An Old Vic production in 1934 featured the husband-and-wife team of Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester as Chasuble and Miss Prism; others in the cast were Roger Livesey (Jack), George Curzon (Algernon), Athene Seyler (Lady Bracknell), Flora Robson (Gwendolen) and Ursula Jeans (Cecily).

[74] Later in the same year, Gielgud presented the work again, with Jack Hawkins as Algernon, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Gwendolen and Peggy Ashcroft as Cecily, with Evans and Rutherford in their previous roles.

[81][82] For Peter Hall's 1982 production at the National Theatre the cast included Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell,[n 11] Martin Jarvis as Jack, Nigel Havers as Algernon, Zoë Wanamaker as Gwendolen and Anna Massey as Miss Prism.

[91] In the same year the Roundabout Theatre Company presented a Broadway revival based on the 2009 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production featuring its director, Brian Bedford, as Lady Bracknell.

[105][n 14] The novelist and critic Arthur Ransome argued that Wilde freed himself by abandoning the melodrama of his earlier drawing room plays and basing the story entirely on the Earnest/Ernest verbal conceit.

[114] Salome, An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Gray had dwelt on more serious wrongdoing, but vice in The Importance of Being Earnest is represented by Algernon's greedy consumption of cucumber sandwiches.

Gwendolen ignores her mother's methodical analysis of Jack Worthing's suitability as a husband and places her entire faith in a forename, declaring in Act I, "The only really safe name is Ernest".

[126][n 16] Wilde parodies 19th-century melodrama, introducing exaggeratedly incongruous situations such as Jack's arrival in full mourning for the brother who has just walked into his house, and the sudden switch from fulsome affection between Cecily and Gwendolen to deep hostility on discovering that they are supposedly both engaged to the same man.

[131][n 17] Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a proponent of queer theory, interprets linguistic aspects of the play as allusions to gay culture and stereotypes, such as references to the German language and the composer Richard Wagner, both of which were associated with male homosexuality in Wilde's day.

The sonnet "Of Boys' Names" included the verse: Though Frank may ring like silver bell and Cecil softer music claim they cannot work the miracle – 'tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame.

[136] Eaton finds this theory unconvincing,[131] and in 2001 Sir Donald Sinden, an actor who had met Lord Alfred Douglas and two of the play's original cast (Irene Vanbrugh and Allan Aynesworth), wrote to The Times to rebut suggestions that "earnest" held any sexual connotations:[138][139] Bunbury is a village in Cheshire.

Lady Bracknell, for instance, embodies respectable, upper-class society, but Eltis notes how her development "from the familiar overbearing duchess into a quirkier and more disturbing character" can be traced through Wilde's revisions of the play.

[108] For the two young men, Wilde presents not stereotypical stage "dudes" but intelligent beings who, as Russell Jackson puts it, "speak like their creator in well-formed complete sentences and rarely use slang or vogue-words".

[148] Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism are, in Jackson's view, characterised by "a few light touches of detail", their old-fashioned enthusiasms and the Canon's fastidious pedantry pared down by Wilde during his many redrafts of the text.

[149] In 1992 Kurt Baker directed a version using an all-black cast with Daryl Keith Roach as Jack, Wren T. Brown as Algernon, Ann Weldon as Lady Bracknell, Lanei Chapman as Cecily, Chris Calloway as Gwendolen, CCH Pounder as Miss Prism and Brock Peters as Dr Chasuble, set in the United States.

It stars Colin Firth (Jack), Rupert Everett (Algernon), Judi Dench (Lady Bracknell), Reese Witherspoon (Cecily), Frances O'Connor (Gwendolen), Anna Massey (Miss Prism) and Tom Wilkinson (Canon Chasuble).

[168] In 1942 BBC radio broadcast scenes from the play, featuring two members of the original cast: the programme was introduced by Allan Aynesworth and starred Irene Vanbrugh as Lady Bracknell.

[172] In 1977 BBC Radio 4 broadcast the four-act version of the play for the first time, with Fabia Drake as Lady Bracknell, Richard Pasco as Jack, Jeremy Clyde as Algy, Maurice Denham as Canon Chasuble, Sylvia Coleridge as Miss Prism, Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Gwendolen and Prunella Scales as Cecily.

[173] In 1995, to mark the centenary of the first performance of the play, Radio 4 broadcast a new adaptation on 13 February; directed by Glyn Dearman, it featured Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell, Michael Sheen as Jack, Martin Clunes as Algernon, John Moffatt as Dr Chasuble, Miriam Margolyes as Miss Prism, Samantha Bond as Gwendolen and Amanda Root as Cecily.

[174] In December 2000 BBC Radio 3 broadcast an adaptation directed by Howard Davies starring Geraldine McEwan as Lady Bracknell, Simon Russell Beale as Jack Worthing, Julian Wadham as Algernon Moncrieff, Geoffrey Palmer as Canon Chasuble, Celia Imrie as Miss Prism, Victoria Hamilton as Gwendolen and Emma Fielding as Cecily.