"Earnest" - Character Plan
''Two young men who have personal obligations feel that they cannot have fun and so take on the same persona to have fun without consequence.''
BOY A--
Name: Jay [James] Hilden
Actor:
Backstory: His father is a member of the local Northern Ireland Parliament as an MP for the SDLP. His father expects him to be studious and proper, and therefore he feels he is restricted in his social life. He cannot do the things regular teenagers do, like having a girlfriend, or clubbin'. He wants a new identity so there are no repercussions to himself, and that is why he creates his 'Ernest'. His best friend is Alistair.
BOY B--
Name: [Ali] Alistair Wilde
Actor:
Backstory: He comes from a family of NHS doctors, but did very poorly in his A2 level year. He is repeating this year in school and his parents are very restrictive due to wanting him to do well in this year. They have given him an ultimatum: do well or get a job. But Alistair still wants to have fun and so creates his 'Ernest'. His best friend is James.
GIRL A--
Name: Chelsea Cardew
Actor:
Backstory: Chelsea is the adrenaline-seeking love interest of Alistair's 'Oscar'. She is also the cousin of Jay.
GIRL B--
Name: Gemma Fairfax
Actor: Grace Magee
Backstory: Gemma is the pompous and stylish love interest of Jay's 'Oscar'. She is also the cousin of Alistair.
WHY WE CHOSE THESE NAMES:
James - We decided to mirror the original Wilde character, Jack, by sticking to the 'J' theme. We therefore chose a name sounding like the name Jack as a nod to the source text.
Hilden - In the original play, Jack Worthington's surname derived from a British train station. We mirrored this in deciding to make James' surname named after a train station in Northern Ireland, the Hilden station.
Alistair - The character that Alistair mirrors in the play is Algernon, or 'Algy'. We decided to keep the theme of a name beginning with 'A', and also to keep with the theme of an uncommon and upperclass sounding name hence why we chose Alistair, or 'Ali'.
Wilde - In the original play, Algy is a self-insert from Oscar Wilde, a dandy, devil-may-care character who talks in riddles. We thought it would make sense then to have our Algy character, Alistair, to have the same surname as Wilde, as a nod to the playwright.
Chelsea Cardew and Gemma Bracknell - Just as we did for the male characters, we wanted the girl characters' names to start with the same first letter as their original counterparts; Cecily and Gwendolen. We chose fashionable, modern names and used the original surnames of the characters in the story.
Oscar - As opposed to 'Ernest', which is rather old fashioned and out dated now, we decided to use 'Oscar' as the codename both boys use when they catfish the girls. It's a nod to the original author as well as a modern, attractive boy's name.
