Filip (August)

Cold Sunday afternoons in August include hot chocolates and deletion of ancient emails. Here’s Max Richards, humouring me, quoting a 2010 TLS on Oscar Wilde: ‘His comedies took slightly longer to gain acceptance, but have proved even more enduring. Since its German premiere in 1902, there have been dozens of productions of The Importance of Being Earnest– or Bunbury as it is called across most of Mitteleuropa. (Outside the Romance-speaking nations, Wilde’s punning title has proved something of a hurdle, though J. K. Novak’s Czech version ingeniously changes the name Earnest to “Filip”, which translates as “gumption” or “nous”).’