Hit theatre production ‘…Earnest?’ puts a madcap twist on Oscar Wilde’s classic farce The Importance Of Being Earnest and sees enthusiastic audience members take centre stage to become the stars of the show. Director & co-writer Simon Paris tells What’s On why it works, why it’s great, and why this type of seat-of-your-pants theatre is so… important.

“When I pitch it to my non-theatre friends, I say we’re putting on a very traditional, classical play, and it’s all going well until the lead actor doesn’t show up. The director comes out, apologises, and says ‘It’s okay because one of you is going to do it.’ We then find the best person in the audience to play this role, and they do it.”

The way Simon Paris tells it, the premise for interactive theatre company Say It Again, Sorry?’s Edinburgh Fringe smash-hit ‘…Earnest?’ sounds so simple. A traditional production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest is thrown into chaos by the non-appearance of its lead, then saved courtesy of the impromptu performance of a heroic audience member. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, in common with the likes of Noises Off and The Play That Goes Wrong, the answer is, pretty much everything - but in a good way. What follows in the show is a chaotic succession of conundrums and spontaneous solutions, with the desperate director (of the play within the play) doing his best to keep the production on track as more and more audience members are drafted in to replace an ever-thinning cast.

The whole endeavour sounds like a tightrope for the (real) director and cast every night. But it’s a situation the company not only accept but embrace, explains Simon, who, as well as being that aforementioned ‘real’ director, is also one of the writers of the show.

“We’ve done it a lot, and we keep learning at every show. I guess the confidence comes from embracing failure - every time something wrong happens, it helps us learn.

“The thing is, we see it as something wrong, but for every audience member watching the show, that’s always their favourite bit; where someone turns to the wrong page of the script, or doesn’t have their reading glasses, and the audience has to pass them through the stalls to the stage - these are always the highlights.”

The play obviously and crucially relies on the involvement of the paying punters, but Simon is at pains to point out that only people who volunteer end up on the stage - shrinking violets have no need to fear being forced into the spotlight.

“The tour plays to an average of 1,000 seats a night now, and by the end of the show we’ve got eight people on stage, so the vast majority of the audience are not involved. They’re essentially living through the audience members who have been picked.

“For us, the show is about designing a path for a random audience member where they can turn into a hero. Over the years we’ve managed to really refine that. The other interesting thing that we’ve refined is the picking of audience members, because they are all completely random. There’s a way that we’ve learned about looking into someone’s eyes and figuring out if they are the person who can become a hero that night.”

Simon also claims the show is ideal for people who aren’t really all that into theatre: “If you like theatre, it’s amazing, but if you find it a little bit boring sometimes, a little bit dull, there is so much stimulation, so much laughter, so much fear in this, that it’s more like a theme-park ride than putting on a play.”

He also believes another reason for the show’s success is finding a way to interact with audiences in a warm and friendly manner, since people often tend to shy away from interactive theatre.

“We never make any audience members volunteer, and we turn them into a local hero - they become a legend, a celebrity. We’ve found a gap in the market, where there’s a way of doing this that isn’t making people feel embarrassed or awkward.”

Conversely, the company have also found a way of handling the potential show-offs who are a little too desperate to get up on the stage.

“Part of having done the show so many times is that we’ve had a lot of different types of people in it. When we get people who are really keen, the show follows a certain track to embrace what they want to give. The show does slightly adapt for the audience members who are selected - there’s hundreds of ways it can get tweaked based on the participants.”

The latter element clearly helps keep it fresh for director and cast alike. Simon happily admits he’s seen all 215 shows they’ve put on so far, and the cast has remained constant throughout, too.

“Normally if I’m directing a show, I can see it a maximum of a dozen times before I want to blow my brains out. I’ve literally seen this over 200 times and still look forward to it. It’s also a good sign that all the original company are still involved and raring to go again.

“The beauty of it is that it’s opening night every night - we don’t know what half of the cast members are going to be.”

The changing cast of audience members ensures every night is different, every night is fun, and every night helps the show evolve, he says.

“Every single time we’ve done the show, something mad has happened - the audience members do something we’ve never expected. For that reason, the whole company are devoted to making little tweaks and adjustments. How does a gag work slightly differently, how can the transitions to the audience members be a little smoother, how can we make every second a new gag and get a bigger laugh?”

That ongoing evolution is likely to continue for Say It Again, Sorry? themselves, as the company, which was founded in 2018, is considering similar treatments for other classic texts, including Shakespeare. The style of work - and how ‘…Earnest?’ itself came about - reflects the team members’ thoughts on how theatre has become a little too ‘safe’, according to Simon.

“This came from us all wanting to put a little more danger, a little more risk and a bit more life into theatre. Film and TV are amazing, and they can do so many things with storytelling better than theatre, but the one thing that theatre will always do better is being live, and we need to capitalise on that.

“What is being live? What is the ultimate ‘you had to be there’? That’s what this is.”

…Earnest? shows at: Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on Saturday 22 & Sunday 23 February; Forum Theatre, Malvern Theatres, from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 March; The Alexandra, Birmingham, on Saturday 17 May and Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, on Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 May.