 According to a study by Robert <unk> , by 2002 there had been least eight adaptations of the play as a musical , though " never with conspicuous success " . The earliest such version was a 1927 American show entitled Oh Earnest . The journalist Mark <unk> comments , " The libretto of a 1957 musical adaptation , Half in Earnest , deposited in the British Library , is scarcely more encouraging . The curtain rises on Algy strumming away at the piano , singing ' I can play <unk> , Lane ' . Other songs include — almost <unk> — ' A <unk> I Must Go ' . " 
