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Season 1, Episode 9 17:50 running time

Oscar Wilde

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius”. This episode looks at the downfall of Oscar Wilde.

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Hosted by

Dame Joanna Lumley

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Sound Editing

Will Jacob

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  • Mayfair, London
  • Picadilly, London
  • Covent Garden, London

Intrigue for Intrigue’s Sake

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Written by

Jasmine Silk

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Performed by

Stephen Fry

About this story

Why did Oscar Wilde encourage artist and friend Graham Robertson and others to wear a Green Carnation at the premier of his new play, Lady Windermere's Fan, in 1892?

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Goodyear’s Florist provided flowers to the Royal Court as well as the general public (and Oscar Wilde). It was one of the original companies to set up store in The Royal Arcade, which opened in 1879 and still maintains its original Victorian glass-covered shopping experience today. The green carnations were worn at the opening of Wilde’s play, Lady Windemere’s Fan, which premiered in February 1982 at the St James’s Theatre, London. The British Library has a copy of the programme. Read The Guardian newspaper’s review of the premiere.

  • Magistrate's Court, Bow Street, London

Still the Sight to See in London

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Written by

Jasmine Silk

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Performed by

Stephen Fry

About this story

In 1895 Oscar Wilde is held in a prison cell after his arrest for ‘indecency’. He had taken his lover Bosie’s father the Marquess of Queensbury, to court but during that trial his illegal LGBTQ+ lifestyle was exposed.

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Robert Hichens wrote The Green Carnation, published by Heinemann, 1894. It is a satire based on the relationship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and infuriated Douglas’ father, the Marquis of Queensberry. Read it at Project Gutenberg. Read for yourself the controversial card the Marquis of Queensberry left for Oscar Wilde at his club (the Albemarle Club). Opinions vary as to the exact wording on the rest of the card, but sodomite is misspelt “somdomite.” Famous Trials has a cartoon from a newspaper of the infamous trial.

  • 31 Upper Bedford Place, Bloomsbury, London

From Gaol to Exile

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Written by

Jasmine Silk

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Performed by

Stephen Fry

About this story

After being convicted for his LGBTQ+ lifestyle, Oscar Wilde is freed from jail in 1897 and is brought to supporter Stewart Headlam’s flat before fleeing to France.

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Reading (a town in England, pronounced ‘Redding’) Museum has pictures and information about Reading Gaol, built in the Victorian era (modern/US spelling: gaol=jail), some from the time of Wilde’s incarceration. Project Gutenberg also has downloadable/online copies of De Profundis, the ‘letter’ Wilde wrote to Douglas while in gaol, and his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol, written after his incarceration, during his exile in France. Wikipedia can introduce you to the Rev Stewart Headlam, the controversial reforming priest who helped to bail Wilde.