In recognition of the birth of Oscar Wilde on this day in 1854, I thought I'd pop a couple of his DVDs on and cast my roving eye over them. Though Coward gets revived on a regular basis, Wilde doesn't seem to pop up with quite the same frequency, at least not on London's stages, though his last appearance (of a fashion) was a hilarious musical version of
The Importance of Being Earnest. He is of course the subject of
The Judas Kiss which has just finished a highly successful run at the Hampstead Theatre and will be transferring into the West End after a short tour, where I will finally catch it in Richmond. And with a neat segue into these film reviews, it is Rupert Everett who takes on the role of Wilde in David Hare's play.
It is neat because Everett was the star of the two most recent cinematic adaptations of Wilde's work,
An Ideal Husband (1999) and
...Earnest (2002), and so clearly has a long-standing affinity with the writer along with director Oliver Parker. And I've also thrown in a review of the Stephen Fry-starring
Wilde (1997) as it was a fair while since I had seen that film and thought it would be a good time to revisit. So there you go, and let's hope it isn't too long before Mr Wilde's work can be seen on the London stage again soon.
