Importance of Being Earnest phantom scene

Cafe Society
1

In the recent film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” there’s a scene when everyone’s at Jack’s country estate when some bill collectors/solicitors show up to haul Ernest off to the clink for failing to pay a restaurant bill. Algernon, masquerading as Ernest, gets taken off but slips off the wagon and returns. This scene is not in the original play (I’ve managed to accumulate four printings of it from four different publishers and none of them include it). It was not in the staged version of the play I saw shortly after seeing the movie. It is in a BBC version from (I think) the mid-70s but I don’t think it’s in the movie version from 1952.

So from whence does this scene originate and why does anyone think it adds to the original play?

2

Please read The Importance of Being Earnest, Avon edition, edited by Henry Popkin. It contains scenes Wilde cut, and some of them are quite funny. I won’t spoil the extra scenes for you, but once you’ve read them perhaps we can start another thread to discuss it.

For some reason Amazon does not have the book, but Barnes and Noble does. Look at it here, http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?isbn=0380012774 and then buy it at your local store.