LUCY Bailey's West End production of Oscar Wilde's comedy of manners, The Importance Of Being Earnest is taking to the road with a star cast led by Nigel Havers, Martin Jarvis and Siân Phillips.

The Bunbury Company of Players will be on tour through the autumn, presenting Wilde's "trivial comedy for serious people" at the Grand Opera House, York, from November 17 to 21.

Havers and Jarvis will reprise their roles as Algernon Moncrieff and John Worthing J.P., re-uniting with Phillips's Lady Bracknell, Rosalind Ayres' Miss Prism and Christine Kavanagh's Cecily Cardew.

They will be joined by Nigel Anthony in the dual roles of butlers Lane and Merriman, Carmen du Sautoy as Gwendolyn Fairfax and David Shaw-Parker as the Reverend Canon Chasuble.

Director Lucy Bailey, comic novelist Simon Brett and innovative designer William Dudley deliver "an entirely faithful, but completely unique, setting to one of the greatest theatrical comedies, introducing Wilde’s genius afresh to a new audience by creating a delightful new context for the play".

York Press:

Sian Phillips as Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest. Picture: Tristram Kenton

The "terrific twist", as the Daily Mail review called it, involves veteran theatre campaigners playing the traditionally much younger protagonists. Havers is 63; Jarvis, 74; Kavanagh, 58; du Sautoy, 65.

Havers says: “This production is very close to my heart and we had a ball doing it in the West End. I’m thrilled we get to do it all again and hope audiences in York will laugh and enjoy watching our twist on Oscar’s brilliant play as much as we enjoy performing it.”

Should this oft-performed 1895 comedy somehow have eluded you, here is a crash course: The Importance Of Being Earnest elegantly lampoons the hypocrisies of Victorian society as two bachelors, the dependable John Worthing, J.P. and upper-class playboy Algernon Moncrieff, feel compelled to create different identities to pursue two eligible ladies, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolyn Fairfax.

The misadventures that spring from their subterfuge and their brushes with the redoubtable Lady Bracknell and the uptight Miss Prism result in a plot that twists and fizzles with Wilde's witty, mischievous dialogue.

The last Lucy Bailey production to tour the Grand Opera House was her 1860s' coastal northern English staging of The Winter's Tale for the Royal Shakespeare Company in March 2013: the one with the giant tower and the film imagery of a huge polar bear exiting the foaming sea.

Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees of The Importance Of Being Earnest are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york, priced from £10 to £32.