THE most quoted and most enduringly popular of Oscar Wilde’s plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, is also one of the most difficult to get right. It calls for expert timing, precise direction and clever blocking to set up what is almost an opera of words into a high farce.

That’s a huge challenge for an amateur company, especially when on press night the director has to take over one of the roles at the last minute.

Castle Players are, however, a plucky group. Director Simon Pell, aka the fervent Reverend Dr Chasuble, pictured right, made life difficult for his actors by not only taking away their props, but also replacing the set with a dozen or so white boxes. Add that to cutting an hour and the acting challenges become huge.

Lynn Smith gives Miss Prism a delightful Bridget Jones appeal and Laura Pennell’s Cecily shows a genteel and accomplished young lady.

Witty dialogue abounds, certainly well delivered by the formidable Lady Bracknell, a suitably over-the-top Trudi Dixon, and Matthew Jones as Ernest Worthing captures his double life with great sincerity.

Suzie Kitson (Gwendolyn Fairfax) catches a good deal of the Victorian hypocrisy with her lovely frivolity, but Andrew Stainthorpe, as the dandyish Algernon Moncrieff, steals the show for me with his brilliant earnestness.

This great piece of parlour theatre is doing the rounds of village halls in Durham and I suspect it’ll get better and better on the way.

■ Jan 15, Ingleton Village Hall; Jan 16, Romaldkirk Village Hall; Jan21, St Mary’s Parish Hall, Barnard Castle; Jan 29, Middridge Village Hall; Feb 12, Cotherstone Village Hall; Feb 18, Dufton Village Hall. For more venues, times and ticket details, go to castleplayers.co.uk

Helen Brown