Oscar Wilde

Merlin Holland tells the story of the epic court clash at the Old Bailey in 1895 between his grandfather, Oscar Wilde, and Edward Carson. Does Carson deserve his reputation as the man who destroyed Oscar Wilde? Also featuring Gyles Brandreth and actors Simon Callow and Rupert Everett.

The story of Oscar Wilde's life, told by his grandson and others.

A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.

King Herod, deeply unpopular organizes a feast to impress his Roman overlords. In a drunken state he entices his beautiful step daughter to dance, promising her anything she wishes.

King Herod asks Salomé, son of the Queen to dance for him... This request leads to the Dance of the Seven Veils and one of the most shocking, thrilling and scandalous climaxes ever seen on stage.

The story is set at the beginning of the Christian era on a large terrace of Herod’s palace, during the reign of Herod Antipas. At night, on a terrace of the palace, Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter, is gazed at passionately by Narraboth, captain of the guard. Jochanaan, a prophet, is imprisoned in a cistern for having slandered Herod. He proclaims the coming of Jesus, but his message is met with incomprehension by the guards. Salome hears the prophet. She manages to convince the guards to bring Jochanaan out so she can see him. Both fascinated and frightened by his prophecies, Salome falls passionately in love with this man. Richard Strauss’s opera at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, directed by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule. In her debut in the title role, Asmik Grigorian distinguished herself with her talents as a singer and actress.

In a society at the height of decadence, where pop stars sing for despots’ birthdays, and even fools can be billionaires, it’s not only the prophets who are kept in cages. There’s one for each of us. In a decaying palace on the edge of the world, everyone is yearning for something to believe in. Sung in English to recapture the shock of Strauss’s scandalous classic, Heartbeat’s intimate new take features a fresh 10-instrument orchestration by Dan Schlosberg of one of Opera’s most extravagant scores.

King Herod Antipas marries his brother's wife, Herodias, which is not acceptable in Judaism and therefore arouses the wrath of John the Baptist. To silence John, who won't stop speaking out against Herodias, Herod throws him into a dungeon. Salome, Herodia's daughter falls in love with John who calls her an abomination and refuses to reciprocate her love. Salome seduces her step father, Herod and forces him to execute John.

Herodias, spurned by Egyptian prince who is in love with Salome, has him secretly thrown in dungeon next to the Baptist. Herodias threatens to kill her lover if Salome does not ask for death of the Baptist. Salome does so, later rescues the prince and flees with him into the desert.

A nightingale sings for a lovesick student. The student is pining for a girl who will only dance with him if he presents her with a red rose. The nightingale fetches a rose, but at a terrible price...

Schroeter's virtuosic staging of the Oscar Wilde tragedy is a complex montage of image and sound, filmed on the grand steps of Baalbeck, the ancient Roman temple in Lebanon, and interweaving Lebanese and German folk songs with the music of Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, Bellini, and Donizetti. Elfi Mikesch, the cinematographer of Schroeter’s later films, designed the film’s sumptuous costumes. A contemporary critic for Le Monde wrote admiringly of Schroeter’s depiction of "the deadly struggle between dark Christian morality and luminous paganism.“

Being sensible can be excessively boring. At least Jack thinks so. While assuming the role of dutiful guardian in the country, he lets loose in town under a false identity. Meanwhile, his friend Algy takes on a similar facade. Unfortunately, living a double life has its drawbacks, especially when it comes to love. Hoping to impress two eligible ladies, the gentlemen find themselves caught in a web of lies they must carefully navigate.

In this adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest, Lavanya is in love with the actor Mahesh Babu and decides to marry a man with the same name. But things take an unexpected turn when she finds out that her boyfriend's real name is not Mahesh.

The day of Lady Windermere’s birthday party, and all is perfectly in order. Until her friend Lord Darlington plants a seed of suspicion. Is her husband having an affair? And will the other woman really attend the party? First performed in 1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan explores the ambiguity of upper class morality and the fragile position of women in society in the late Victorian era in one of Wilde’s most popular and witty plays.

In An Ideal Husband, an ambitious government minister, Sir Robert Chiltern, is on an assured smooth ascent to the top. Until Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning proof of his previous financial chicanery, that is.

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

Terrified by a horde of lustful unmarried women, a man is forced into marriage by a very sick uncle.

No synopsis available yet.

National treasure and Poirot star David Suchet starred as the formidable Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s much loved masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. Directed by Adrian Noble, (Amadeus, The King’s Speech, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) Wilde’s superb satire on Victorian manners is one of the funniest plays in the English language. Two bachelor friends, the adorable dandy Algernon Moncrieff (Philip Cumbus – regular player at Shakespeare’s Globe) and the utterly reliable John Worthing J.P., (Downton Abbey’s Michael Benz) lead double lives to court the attentions of the exquisitely desirable Gwendolyn Fairfax (Emily Barber) and Cecily Cardew (Imogen Doel). The gallants must then grapple with the riotous consequences of their deceptions, and with the formidable Lady Bracknell.

Set during the London season of 1895, An Ideal Husband is a dazzling blend of farce and morality that explores human frailty and social hypocrisy Sir Robert Chilterns secret is discovered and exposed. He is accused of having exploited government secrets for his own gain early in his political career. With this revelation from Mrs. Cheveley comes the threat of blackmail and the ruin of Sir Robert's career. Yet in order to be a successful blackmailer, one's own reputation must be beyond reproach.

Based on Oscar Wilde's short story.

A man in a Liverpool office conjures up the last hours of a condemned prisoner, in this reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s poem, given a non-naturalistic treatment using electronic effects and voiceover narration.

John the Baptist finds himself in a Holešovice silo, a wanderer roams across Prague´s brownfields and several women face their fathers.

Lord Windermere appears to all - including to his young wife Margaret - as the perfect husband. But their happy marriage is placed at risk when Lord Windermere starts spending his afternoons with an adventuress who is working her way through London's high society, Mrs. Erlynne. Worse, Windermere gives her big sums of money. To crown it all he asks his wife to invite the detestable woman to her own birthday party. Upset and outraged, the puritan Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband and goes to Lord Robert Darlington, who has been courting her for some time. Unfortunately she leaves her fan - the one Robert offered her for her birthday - in Robert's house...

Dorian Gray is but a boy, yet he's worshipped as a God - by the closeted painter who immortalized his beauty, by the libertine who taught him all of the world's secret pleasures, and by himself. For the next one hundred years, Dorian Gray falls into a rabbit-hole of debauchery, remaining forever young while his portrait pays the price for each of his sins. But when crimes of decades past come back to haunt him, and the novelty of everlasting youth starts taking its toll, can his soul still be redeemed?

Oscar Wilde’s famous and eloquent defence of love – made while he was being cross-examined at the trial that led to his incarceration and death – is strikingly illustrated, word by word, with Mapplethorpe-like imagery.