Other Doctor Lives: The Importance of Being Earnest (2025)

I’ve been waiting for this production to come to National Theatre Live ever since I first heard about it last year. Ncuti Gatwa doing Oscar Wilde? Yes, please! While the play isn’t up on the streaming service yet, it was available to stream on YouTube for one week only back in March. So, since I’m taking a break between Twenty Twelve and W1A, I obviously knew what was the first Other Doctor Lives project I wanted to review in the interim!

Algernon gets quite the tale from his friend Ernest—who, it turns out, isn’t Ernest at all. He confesses that his real name is actually Jack. A respectable young man with a country estate and a ward under his protection, Jack invented a “wicked brother Ernest” in London, giving him an excuse to go into town whenever he wants to drink, play cards, and generally be less than respectable. Only now, he’s in love with Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen and wants to marry her…but first he has to confess who he really is. Meanwhile, Algernon’s never been to Jack’s house in the country, and if his friend is giving up the name Ernest, it seems like the perfect time for Algernon to start using it in his stead.

This production is so much fun! I read The Importance of Being Earnest back in college, but this is the first time I’ve seen it performed. It’s just a terrific romp all around. Oscar Wilde’s dialogue sparkles, as it rightly should: the sly commentary, the cheeky witticisms, the winking references. All fantastic! The staging keeps the farce brisk, the romance is frothy with a bit of spikiness, and the banter volleys between the characters like a tennis match. Also, there are some nice interstitials in front of the curtain to keep things moving during the set changes, such as Algernon modeling wardrobe choices while he packs for an excursion.

And can I just say: for a play that prominently features two male/female romances, this production is so gloriously gay! Algernon opens the show playing the piano in a pink ballgown. There’s flirty banter between Algernon and Jack and a homoerotic rivalry between their respective love interests. There are Outfits!!! galore. Everything is camp, everything is arch, everything is fun. There’s voguing during the curtain call. This is the gayest ostensibly straight show I’ve ever seen, and I think we can all agree that’s what Oscar Wilde would’ve wanted.

The whole cast understands the assignment and plays their roles to the letter. Hugh Skinner is great as Jack, bewildered by the tangled web of his own making and incensed at Algernon for cheerfully making everything worse. Ronke Adekoluejo is a firecracker as his would-be fiancee Gwendolen, and Eliza Scanlen (Beth from the Greta Gerwig Little Women) is an absolute hoot as his ward Cecily. Sharon D. Clarke, who played Grace during the Thirteen era of Doctor Who, is a splendidly imposing Lady Bracknell, serving court every time she enters the room. Meanwhile, Julian Bleach, another Whoniverse alum (most recently as Davros during the Twelve era) does double duty as both Algernon and Jack’s manservants.

And then we have Ncuti Gatwa, who is just a delightful force of nature as the incomparable Algernon Moncrieff. The costumes are excellent, the poses are camp, and the wit is delicious. He handles all of Algernon’s clever lines with charm and humor, and he handles all the scheming with puckish enthusiasm.

I loved Algernon when I read the play, and I adore Gatwa’s performance here. This is a man who is utterly and inescapably himself, even when he’s pretending to be someone else. Regarding his piano playing abilities, he declares, “I don’t play accurately—anyone can play accurately. But I play with wonderful expression.” He eats when he’s hungry, bored, stressed, excited, etc., and makes no apologies for it. He lives for drama and has an answer to everything. He causes trouble and refuses to be shamed for it. Gatwa plays Algernon with music in his movements and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Yes!!!

Accent Watch

RP.

Recommend?

In General – Definitely. This production is such a good time!

Ncuti Gatwa – 100%! Gatwa is totally in his element here—he just exudes Algernon!

Warnings

Suggestiveness, drinking, and thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Stonemouth: Episode 2 (2015)

*CW: suicide*

The second half of the miniseries. I did enjoy Stonemouth, although not as much as The Crow Road. Yes, there’s a lot more Peter Capaldi in that one than there is Ncuti Gatwa in this one, which is a factor but not the whole story.

Despite threats to stop digging, Stewart continues to investigate Callum’s death after his funeral. With Ellie’s help, they try to figure out what kind of trouble he might’ve been mixed up in, and as they search for the truth, they don’t shy away from the most troubling possibilities—including Ellie’s own family.

To be fair to Stonemouth, it’s at a disadvantage being only two episodes instead of four. That means everything is more compressed. There’s a big mystery to solve within two hours, and all the character drama needs to fit in between that. As such, it doesn’t have as much room to breathe as The Crow Road, and as Stewart and Ellie’s investigation ramps up here, that’s even more the case. I’ll admit that, for me, it feels like a bit of a jumble of organized crime/smuggling, lies, and possible personal motivations, and the reveal of the killer isn’t altogether satisfying for me.

But like I said, I still enjoy it. When those character moments come, they’re really well done. I especially like Callum’s funeral, a hard conversation between Ellie and her mother, and a sweet exchange between Stewart and Ferg.

What this episode doesn’t have is much of anything in the way of Ncuti Gatwa. Dougie’s only appearance is at the funeral, where he sits out-of-focus behind Stewart and doesn’t really get to do anything. That’s a bummer. In something like this, I generally prefer it if the actor I’m watching for starts out with less screentime and gets more in subsequent episodes. When it happens the other way around, it can feel anticlimactic.

I know we just did this last week, but here are my final thoughts:

Accent Watch

You wouldn’t know it from this episode, since he has no dialogue, but Scottish.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. I liked it, and the acting is good.

Ncuti Gatwa – Not a must. There’s hardly anything here.

Warnings

Violence, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking/drug references, and strong thematic elements (including suicide.)

Other Doctor Lives: Stonemouth: Episode 1 (2015)

*CW: suicide*

*Premise spoilers*

Way back when I was going through Peter Capaldi’s filmography at the start of this blog—the proto-Other Doctor Lives—the miniseries The Crow Road was my introduction to author Iain Banks. I remember how much I loved that one, so it’s fitting that another Scottish Doctor had one of his earliest roles in a miniseries based on a different Banks novel.

It’s been two years since Stewart Gilmour left Stonemouth, chased out of town by his fiancee Ellie’s crime lord family after an epic mistake. He’s just returned to attend the funeral for Callum, one of his best friends and Ellie’s brother. Everyone thinks he’s just there to come sniffing around Ellie again, and Stewart would be lying if he said she hadn’t crossed his mind. But he’s also deeply affected by Callum’s death and isn’t sure he buys the official record that it was suicide.

It’s been a number of years since I watched The Crow Road, so there are plenty of particulars about the story that I can’t recall very well, but I know I definitely got familiar vibes from the first half of this miniseries. There’s the similar theme of a somewhat rudderless young man digging into the mystery surrounding someone important to him, someone who’s no longer there to provide the answers he’s looking for. Flashbacks are very important to both stories, slipping down easily between the past and the present. And both have this rather dueling sense of beauty and bleakness that seems to be part of the essential human condition in the small Scottish town where it takes place.

I knew the actor playing Stewart was familiar to me, but it wasn’t until I saw his name that I could place him. Christian Cooke: he played Ross, a UNIT soldier, in the Tenth Doctor story “The Sontaran Stratagem” / “The Poison Sky.” I recognize Charlotte Spencer, who plays Ellie, from Sanditon, where she was Lady Babington. Some good veteran Scottish actors here, including Gary Lewis and Peter Mullan, the latter of whom plays Ellie and Callum’s dad. And while I’m not really familiar with the actors, I really like Chris Fulton as Stewart’s other best friend Ferg—kudos for the close friendship between a queer guy and a straight guy!—and Samuel Robertson as Callum in flashbacks.

Ncuti Gatwa plays Dougie, one of Stewart’s old friends. Stewart is most interested in reconnecting because Dougie’s a police officer now, and he hopes to get the real scoop on Callum’s death. Dougie’s not sure he buys that there was any foul play, but he does give Stewart one piece of intel that looks like it could prove valuable.

As such, Dougie is a very functional character and doesn’t give Gatwa too much to do. He’s only in a couple scenes, and we just see hints of his personality in between dropping exposition—I like when he slyly insists on avoiding “casting aspersions on the professionalism of our trusty boozehound of a pathologist.”

Accent Watch

Scottish. 

Recommend?

In General – I might. It started a little slow, but I was drawn into it more as the episode went on. It’s only two episodes, so we’ll see what I think after the conclusion.

Ncuti Gatwa – Interesting artifact because it’s such an early performance, but probably not a must. So far, it’s a small, undemanding role.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including suicide and references to incest,) violence, sexual content, language, and drinking/smoking/drug references.

Other Doctor Lives: Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (2019, TV-PG)

Okay, so Horrible Histories was a British kids’ show that did comedic sketches about various historical events. This is a feature-length movie they made about five years after the series ended. I haven’t seen any of the sketch show, so I’m not sure if the film included some of the same actors—I just know that Ncuti Gatwa only appears in this movie.

In ancient Rome, a studious young man named Atti is forced to join the army after he accidentally gets on Nero’s bad side. He’s sent to Britain, where the Celtic warrior Boudicca is urging the different tribes to join together and defeat the Romans. When Atti is captured by an aspiring young warrior named Orla, wouldn’t you know it, the two discover they might not be so different after all.

Knowing that this is an offshoot of a show geared toward kids makes sense. The comedy is fairly broad, relying a lot on character archetypes, easy jokes, and some gross-out humor. It’s fairly silly, and the story is flimsy. There are also a handful of so-so musical numbers that don’t add very much to the proceedings.

There are a number of Roman numeral jokes, like the trainer urging all the gladiators to “give it CX percent” in the arena. There’s a running gag of Nero trying to murder his mother—she’s ruled as his regent since they murdered Nero’s father, but now that he’s come of age, she’s reluctant to step aside and let him take his full power as emperor. One joke I do like is when someone explains to the Celts what a cat is: “It’s a Roman thing—like a small furry dog, only it doesn’t really like you. It just pretends to like you to get food.” Hehe!

A handful of familiar faces here, as there is with most anything British. Orla is played by Emilia Jones, who I first saw as a kid in the Eleventh Doctor story “The Rings of Akhaten,” but who more recently played the lead role in CODA. Her father is played by Nick Frost, while Katy Wix (Barbara from season 3 of Ted Lasso) appears in a small role as a “reporter” covering the Celtic warrior’s growing following. For the Roman characters, we’ve got Rupert Graves (who I know best as Lestrade on Sherlock) as a general who makes very self-important speeches with a lot of contradictory commands, and Warwick Davis pops up briefly as the gladiator trainer. And in another bit I like, Derek Jacobi has a cameo as Emperor Claudius, which is (I assume) a winking nod to his iconic role in I, Claudius.

Ncuti Gatwa has a small supporting role as Timidius, one of Atti’s pals in the army. For most of his screentime, he’s paired with another soldier named Dimidius. They’re the ones who notice Atti’s missing after he’s taken by Orla, and whenever we check back in with the soldiers, we mainly follow Timidius and Dimidius.

In their dynamic, Dimidius is the dumb/dim one—hence his name—so he gets the brunt of the jokes. This leaves Timidius as the slightly long-suffering straight man. But as we’ve seen from Doctor Who and Sex Education, Gatwa can definitely go big, but he can also go small and still be really effective. When they’re looking for Atti and Dimidius frets, “You don’t think he was eaten by a tiger?”, I like Timidius’s gently deadpan response, “I’m not sure there’s tigers in Britain.” He gives good Did you really just say that? face!

Accent Watch

Sounds like his usual Scottish to me.

Recommend?

In General – Eh, not really. Kids who are into historical comedy might be into it, but it wasn’t for me.

Ncuti Gatwa – Not a must. Gatwa’s performance here is cute and fun, but it’s a pretty small role and he doesn’t have that much to do.

Warnings

Violence, gross-out humor, and thematic elements.