 Whenever Jack Worthing slips away to London from his Hertfordshire estate he says he is going to see his (fictitious) wayward brother Ernest. Once there he keeps his privacy by calling himself Ernest - luckily so as his beloved Gwendolen declares she could only love an Ernest. Her cousin Algy is the one person who knows Jack s secret and one day he travels down to the estate, announcing himself to Jack s attractive ward Cecily as bad brother Ernest. Cecily is much taken with him and with his name, so on Jack s return home and Gwendoen s unexpectedly arrival it becomes clear there are both too many and too few Ernests earnestly courting.