Editorial Journal of John Cooper on Oscar Wilde
Following the podcast featuring Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland in Gyles Brandreth’s series Rosebud, here is another worth noting for Wildeans who might have missed it.
It is an interview with broadcaster, comedian, and writer, Stephen Fry: and thus the President of the Oscar Wilde Society meets one of its honorary patrons (and the man who played Oscar Wilde in the film of that name in 1997).
Continue reading “Rosebud II — Stephen Fry”
MERLIN HOLLAND’S GUEST APPEARANCE ON ROSEBUD
Merlin Holland is the grandson of the great poet, playwright and paragon of late Victorian decadence, Oscar Wilde. Merlin’s story, and that of his family, is captivating.
Continue reading “Merlin Holland on Rosebud”
A podcast worth noting for Wildeans is Rosebud—a series of interviews conducted by the estimable Gyles Brandreth. Notable not because Gyles is now a podcaster—surely a part preordained for a journalist, novelist, non-fiction writer, publisher, television presenter, after-dinner speaker, theatre producer, university chancellor, former politician, and perennial novelty knitwear model.
No—it is more pertinently notable because Gyles is also the Honorary President of the Oscar Wilde Society. And it’s more recently notable because on March 21, 2024 his guest on the podcast was Rupert Everett, an actor who also has strong connections to Oscar Wilde.
Continue reading “Rosebud”
Last Wednesday evening at the Rosenbach Museum and Library I attended a talk about Mickle Street, the new play that showcases the 1882 meeting between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde.
One of the presenters was the author of the play Michael Whistler, who explained how it had been necessary for him to invent conversations and situations to portray events that had not been fully recorded. All well and good: reimagining is a legitimate technique in storytelling. But it naturally raises the question of realism vs. artistic license.
So as the talk continued I was assessing the boundaries to a responsible author’s imagination, when he added with evident forethought:
“I am not a scholar; I am not a historian—I am a playwright.”
This bold assertion halted my thought process as it appeared to transcend any idea of boundaries: there was an air of mutual exclusivity about it.
Granted we were in a library, but I sensed a virtual divide had suddenly been placed between fact and fiction. As if facts ought to be the sphere of the scholar and fiction the preserve of the playwright.
I wondered whether the speaker was still in the realm of explanation or was this now justification? And then I realized: it was both! An author defending himself simply by defining himself. Quite deft, I thought.
However, as I am not a playwright myself but rather something of a scholar, I soon realized this construction placed me on the other side of the argument. So the question: how much of the debt to history is owed the critic and how much by the artist?
Continue reading “Critics and Artists at The Rosenbach”