A star-studded BBC film of Oscar Wilde’s glittering and controversial career before his trial for homosexual crimes and tragic fall from grace. Highlights from Oscar’s brilliant comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest and stories such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost are adapted and performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet. Wilde enthusiasts and experts, including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland and his latest biographers, provide revelatory accounts of how his own life informed his work. His Irish roots, his early career, his marriage and the importance of women as well as men in his life all combine in a complex and compelling characterisation and celebration that adds flesh to the bones of a man who is too often caricatured.
Acting
Freddie Fox channeling Wilde's chaotic bisexual energy
Production
BBC at its most lavishly self-indulgent
Writing
Wilde's own words, obviously — hard to compete
Director
Richard Curson Smith
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Freddie Fox is actually the son of Edward Fox and nephew of James Fox — British acting royalty playing British literary royalty. The nepotism jumped out, and honestly? Deserved.
This aired during the 2019 campaign to pardon men convicted under historical anti-gay laws, making Wilde's 'gross indecency' conviction feel less like distant history and more like urgent unfinished business.
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