Synopsis: The fate of Oscar Wilde is well known.  His trial for ‘indecent acts’, his subsequent imprisonment in Reading Gaol – which virtually destroyed his enormous popularity both as a playwright, and as a society celebrity – and his subsequent descent into depression, alcoholism, and illness, leading to his premature death in Paris at 46 – all these have been well documented, and often portrayed on screen and stage.

What is not so well known is that the whole tragic saga really came to a head on the occasion of the first night of his most successful, and ultimately most enduring comedy, ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’. Whilst the audience were laughing and applauding uproariously in the auditorium, Oscar himself, banned from sitting out front, was going through emotional confrontations backstage, and his nemesis, the deranged Marquess of Queensberry, was marauding outside with a prizefighter companion, seeking an opportunity to assault him.

The irony of these contrasting circumstances surely did not escape Wilde, whose tragedy ultimately had such an effect on today’s very different moral attitudes.