The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet and author, who is celebrated for his shard wit and distinctive literary style. After studying at both Trinty College and Oxford University, he began his writing career in London, writing his first novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Despite his work facing criticism due to controversial topics discussed, his popularity grew, and his reputation was further solidified as he began producing a series of plays. His final play The Importance of being Earnest is considered a masterpiece. 

For Storyhouse / Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Little Women, Antigone, 2022 assistant director A Little Night Music, 2018 

Natasha is currently the Carne Associate Director across The Orange Tree Theatre and LAMDA.  

Directing credits The Prince (Southwark Playhouse – winner of Broadwayworld best production of a new play) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet (Orange Tree Theatre) Now and Then (English Theatre Frankfurt) Richard II, Boeing Boeing Gone (Guildford Shakespeare Company) Much Ado About Nothing (RADA at the Utah Shakespeare Festival) The Duchess of Malfi, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Whatsapp, The Tail of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast (Creation Theatre) The Standard Long Short Drop (Edinburgh Fringe) The Snow Queen (Iris Theatre) The Time Machine (site specific at The London Library for Creation Theatre) A Christmas Carol (Guildford Shakespeare Company and Jermyn Street Theatre) Scuttlers (LAMDA) The Last Fire Breathing Tunnel Digger, online as part of Telling Tales (Muck & Rumble – Oncom finalists 2020) Twelfth Night (Rose Playhouse) Rhino (King’s Head) Hilda and Virginia (Jermyn Street) The Story Chef (Whizzfizz Fest)  

As associate/assistant director credits include Romeo and Juliet (The Globe) The Comedy of Errors (RSC) and Shirley Valentine (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds). 

 Natasha was previously an artistic associate at Jermyn Street Theatre and a creative associate as part of Creation Theatre’s rep company. 

Paula James is a performer, singer and composer, who began by playing and writing for classical guitar. Her first compositions were performed in shows and concerts in London, Italy and Norway. Since graduating from Drama Studio London’s Acting course in 2010 she’s written & performed the scores for Look, But You Must Leap by First Draft Theatre, and Rachel De-Lahay’s short play Dead Reckoning (Five Plays) at the Young Vic. She has also helped devise the songs for Lazarus Theatre Company’s Electra and Hiccup Theatre Company’s The Gingerbread Man, and has arranged and performed music for Guildford Shakespeare Company’s Thy Eternal Summer. 

As an actor, singer and musician she has performed in plays and new musicals worldwide, and appears on Hiccup Theatre’s album Goldi-Red and Gingerbread, and the studio recording of Ed Zanders & Matthew Cavendish’s hilarious musical comedy Bluff. In the summer of 2017 she released her debut solo EP called Shelter and she is also one half of the Singing Sisters (@Sing.Sisters) who create music and videos for children and families to enjoy on YouTube! For more information please visit www.PaulaJames.co.uk.  

The Importance Of Being Earnest marks Paula’s Musical Directorial debut and she is thrilled to be making it at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre! 

For Storyhouse, Cinderella and Antigone.  

Paul has featured in hit musicals such as: The Lion King (original cast), Saturday Night Fever, Oh What a Night, Porgy and Bess, Fame, The Full Monty and danced with Madonna, Kylie, Sugababes, Shirley Bassey as well as appearing on the Royal Variety Show: Top of the Pops. He has appeared in the Disney film Cinderella, the new feature film Snow White out in 2025, and Wicked due out in 2024. 

Paul choreographed Romeo and Juliet at The Shakespeare Globe, Love’s Labour’s Lost for the Oxford Shakespeare Company, Gin Craze at The Royal and Derngate. Paul is currently associate choreographer on the Olivier award winning show Operation Mincemeat in the West End. 

This is Ieuan’s first season as Lighting Designer at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre (GPOAT)  having previously spent eight years as a lighting technician at Venue Cymru, Llandudno. With a variety of theatre, corporate and TV lighting experience, including 2020’s I’m A Celebrity, Ieuan is really looking forward to this year’s GPOAT, rain or shine!  

Previous lighting design credits he’s especially proud of include Ysgol John Bright’s Addam’s Family in 2023 and Present Stage Theatre Company’s Blithe Spirit in 2018. 

For Storyhouse: Miss Blake in Blue Stockings, Marie in The Suicide, Lady Gabriel in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mrs Nordstrom in A Little Night Music, Tituba in The Crucible and Aunty Em and The Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz.  

Other stage work includes, Francisca in Wonder Girl (Oval House), Isabel & Northumberland in Richard II (Arcola), In The Blood (Finborough), The Wedding Dance (Bolton Octagon), The Royal Hunt of The Sun (National Theatre), The Lion & The Jewel (Barbican Theatre), The Gondoliers/The Water Babies (Chichester), The Lion King (Lyceum) Merry Wives of Windsor & Twelfth Night (Regent‘s Park Open Air), The Amen Corner (Bristol Old Vic), The Red Balloon (Birmingham Rep/National Theatre), The Threepenny Opera (Donmar) and most recently, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (US tour 2024 for Actors From The London Stage) and Agathe in Agathe (The Playground Theatre, London). 

 Television credits include You Don’t Know Me, Doctors, Rough Treatment, The Bill, Casualty and In Your Dreams. Film credits include; Fluid, Greys Inbetween, Offending Angels, Harvest Festival and the BAFTA winning Zinky Boys Go Underground. 

Tom trained at Rose Bruford college on the MA Actor Musicianship programme. 

His theatre credits include: Oh What a Lovely War (Blackeyed Theatre); 2065 and Firesongs (FrozenLight); Rewind and Offstage (Ephemeral Ensemble); Romeo & Juliet and Snow White (Black Rat Productions). 

Tom’s television credits include: Gwaith/Cartref (S4C/Fiction Factory); Tuesday at Jackie’s (It’s My Shout/BBC Wales). 

Theatre includes: Human Nurture (Theatre Centre Tour), Run Sister Run (Paines Plough/Sheffield Theatres/Soho Theatre), The Butterfly Lion (Chichester Festival Theatre), Kes (Leeds Playhouse), War Horse (National Theatre Tour), The Winter’s Tale (ENO, Coliseum), Pinocchio; A Tender Thing (The Duke’s Theatre), Alan, We Think You Should Get a Dog (New Diorama Theatre), Coram Boy; Ivanov; Romeo and Juliet (RCSSD), This is Not a Drill (Tristan Bates Theatre), Five, Four, None (The Roundhouse). 

TV and Film include: Last to Break (YLE1), Casualty (BBC), Masters of the Air (AppleTV), The Witcher: Blood Origins (Netflix), Worzel Gummidge (BBC). 

Theatre includes: Falkland Sound, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Faust, The Alchemist, The Virtuoso, Julius Caesar (RSC), Richard III, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Nell Gwynn (Shakespeare’s Globe), Our Lady of Blundellsands (Liverpool Everyman), The Last Abbot (Rabble), Henry V (Tobacco Factory), Witness for the Prosecution (County Hall), Parliament Square (Manchester Royal Exchange/Bush), King Lear (Old Vic), Goodnight Mr Tom (West End/Tour), I Am a Camera (Southwark Playhouse), Bingo (Chichester/Young Vic), You Can’t Take It With You (Manchester Royal Exchange), Romeo and Juliet (Wolsey Ipswich), The Pull of Negative Gravity (Colchester/Traverse/NYC), The Firework Maker’s Daughter (Told by an Idiot), Men Should Weep, Singer, After the Dance (Oxford Stage), Present Laughter (Bath), East is East (Leicester Haymarket), Pera Pelas (Gate), Romeo and Juliet, The Revenger’s Tragedy (Orange Tree). 

Television includes: It’s a Sin, Spooks, Wallander, Casualty, EastEnders, Waking the Dead, Doctors, Innocents and Grange Hill. 

Film includes: Benjamin, Undercliffe and Making Noise Quietly. 

Hanora is a Bristolian actor, musician and theatre maker. Her theatre credits include: TESS (Ockham’s Razor); MACBETH (Bristol Old Vic) Brief Encounter (New Wolsey & Wiltshire Creative, UK tour); A Gig for Ghosts (Soho Theatre with 45North); Mog: The Forgetful Cat (Royal & Derngate with The Old Vic); The Ballad of Maria Marten (Wilton’s Music Hall, UK tour); 5 Children & IT (The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath); Winners (The Wardrobe Ensemble); Riot (Bristol Old Vic); 1972: The Future of Sex (Bristol Old Vic); Education, Education, Education (Trafalgar Studios); Four Seasons (Little Bulb Theatre Company); The Wind in the Willows (The Core at Corby Cube); Eloise and the Curse of the Golden Whisk (The Wardrobe Theatre, UK tour); Edgar and the Land of the Lost (The Bike Shed Theatre); Pippi Longstocking (The Royal & Derngate); Rebellion Playground (The Exeter Phoenix); The Snow Beast (UK tour); Great Train Robbery (UK tour); Nel (UK tour); A Fool’s Proof (UK tour); Chloe and the Colour Catcher (Theatre Ad Infinitum with Bristol Old Vic); C Word Clubhouse (Bristol Old Vic). 

 TV: Borderline (Sky); Hijack (Apple TV+); The Undeclared War (Channel 4); Breadline (BBC Four); Mimi’s World (Channel 5).  

Radio: The Flock (A Ton of Feathers).   

For Storyhouse / Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre:  Romeo & Juliet, Stig of the Dump and Little Women 2022.  

He has been touring The Circle by Somerset Maugham – last year’s acclaimed production from The Orange Tree Theatre. 

Other theatre credits include: Fiddler on the Roof (The Menier Chocolate Factory/ The Playhouse); La Cage Aux Folles (The Playhouse); The Sound of Music (The Palladium); Richard III, Macbeth, Loves Labours Lost, As You Like It, She Stoops To Conquer (Guildford Shakespeare Company); James and the Giant Peach, Daisy Pulls It Off (The Watermill); The Soldier’s Tale, I Shall Hear In Heaven (Wimbledon International Music Festival); Bar Mitzvah Boy (Upstairs at the Gatehouse). 

TV includes: Professor T, Grantchester, Doctors, The Sister Boniface Mysteries. 

Film includes: The Therapist. 

Radio includes: Orley Farm, Rudolph’s Quest, Together. 

Robert records for the audiobook company Deadtree Publishing. 

He was a professional French Horn player for twenty years, and a member of The Philharmonia for ten of them. 

For Storyhouse / Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Pride and Prejudice, The Jungle Book and Merry Wives of Windsor and Oliver Twist,  2021.  

Jenny trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. 

Theatre credits include: The Wind in the Willows (Shakespeare North Playhouse), The Card (New Vic Theatre), Twopence to Cross the Mersey (UK tour), The Card (Claybody theatre),  Cilla – The Musical (UK tour), Julius Caesar (The Playground Theatre), The Little Match Girl and The Fir Tree, (Door Ajar), The Decameron (Tara Theatre).  

Yolanda trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. 

In 2020 she won Paradox Theatre Company’s Monologue Competition and in 2021 won Best Supporting Actress in a Drama at The British Web Awards for her performance of Juliet in The Shakespeare Republic #AllTheWebsAStage (The Lockdown Chronicles) Web series. 

Her most recent credits include:  

JITNEY’at The Old Vic Theatre, SPLINTERED at Soho Theatre and UNBELIEVABLE at The Criterion Theatre- marking her West End Debut. 

Theatre credits include: Captain John’s in Jon Dove and Josh Roche’s Pressure, Lord Peter Wimsey in Brian Blessed’s Busman’s Honeymoon, Tom Watson in Psyche Stott’s Girl on The Train, Orlando in Caroline Devlin’s As You Like It, Marlow in Tom Littler’s She Stoops To Conquer, Banquo in Ant Stones Macbeth, Lockwood in Michael Oakley’s Wuthering Heights, Adolf in Tom Littler’s Creditors, Dumaine/Holofernes in Tom Littler’s Loves Labour’s Lost, Little John in Richard Neale’s Robing Hood, Jean in Tom Littler’s Miss Julie, Dr Banner/Lawrence in Phillip Wilson’s After the Dance, Andy in Brian Martin’s Align, Nicholas in A.A. Milne’s The Dover Road, Tom Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Charles Bruno in Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Soranzo in John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, Willy Wax in Clifford Odets’ Rocket to the Moon, Henry VIII in Howard Brenton’s Anne Boleyn, Uncle in Lawrence Till’s Perfect Boy.  

TV credits: Charles Radler – Father Brown 2024, Officer McLeash – Sherwood 2023, Campbell Kamen – Sister Boniface Mysteries 2023, Detective Robson – Hollyoaks 2023, Andrew – Grantchester 2021, PC Adam Striker – Casualty 2019/2020/2023, Ed Turnham in two episodes of Doctors (BBC).  

Other: Trivago Guy – Trivago Campagne 2023/2024, Dad – Everybody Dies … Sometimes 2021, Peter – Murder Trail Tonight – 2023. 

Oisín Thompson is an actor from Belfast. He graduated from the Lir Academy in 2023. His stage credits include: An Chos Eile, an Irish Language Production, Hammam by Anu Productions at The Abbey Theatre and The Rising of the Moon by Lady Gregory at Bewleys Theatre.