This year’s central production at the newly-named Autumn Festival of Norfolk, previously the Hostry Festival, is the delectable Lady Windermere’s Fan. Oscar Wilde at his most stylish.

As director Stash Kirkbride says, the show, performed in Norwich Cathedral's Hostry, offers a window into the Edwardian world much in the same way as Downton Abbey.

Costumes by Suzanne Bell glitter with contemporary glamour.

Without the aid of a backdrop, the lace-trimmed frocks are set pieces in themselves and the fan of the title is as elegant as its owner.

The play is full of Wilde’s wit and wisdom, with such favourite one-liners as “I can resist everything except temptation". 

Norwich Evening News: Lady Windermere's Fan is in Norwich Cathedral's Hostry this week Lady Windermere's Fan is in Norwich Cathedral's Hostry this week (Image: Supplied)

This, says Kirkbride, originally attracted him to the text. However, it is the character drawing and the way his cast of society beaux teeter on a precipice from the start that is most compelling.

You only have to watch the 1925 silent movie, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, to see how gripping the story is even without the words.

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Scandal, rather than death, is the pit into which these characters must not fall, and there are traps everywhere.

Norwich Evening News: The Norfolk Actors Company 2023 Picture: Debbie HarrisThe Norfolk Actors Company 2023 Picture: Debbie Harris (Image: Debbie Harris)

The action is focused on a mother-daughter relationship. Mrs Erlynne is the mother that Lady Windermere believes dead.

Her reappearance into her daughter’s life is mired from the outset by blackmail and things only get worse as she tries to secretly manoeuvre her way back into society at the daughter’s expense.

NataŠa Cordeaux as Lady Windermere and Tracey Catchpole as Mrs Erlynne succeeds in see-sawing our sympathies from one great lady to the other in a way that tugs the heartstrings.

The show continues until Saturday, October 28 - visit autumnfestivalofnorfolk.org/whats-on