Oscar Wilde's 150th Birthday Bash

Posted on August 11, 2005

USA Today reports on a interesting-sounding DVD which will was just released called Happy Birthday, Oscar Wilde (Kultur). The two-hour documentary "delivers lines written by the Irish poet and playwright in the late 1800s." The all-star cast delivering the witty words of Wilde include Bono, Annie Lennox, Frank McCourt, Geoffrey Rush, Fionnula Flanagan and Liam Neeson.

The documentary is the realized dream of Irish independent filmmaker Bill Hughes, who has the same birthday (Oct. 16) as Wilde. The project began last year when U2's Bono agreed to participate and Amnesty International became its beneficiary, part of its Art for Amnesty program.
Hughes then scoured London, New York and Los Angeles and received an overwhelming response from the celebrities he asked to take part. "Martin Sheen got so excited and asked if he could bring along some of the cast of West Wing," he says, including Lily Tomlin and Richard Schiff.
For the film, Wilde scholars Frank McGuinness and Noreen Doody pored through the author's original text and lifted 150 lines for the celebrities to speak. A shorter version of Happy Birthday, Oscar Wilde was shown in Britain and Ireland this year. Hughes says PBS will run it in time for Wilde's 151st birthday.

Wilde's best-known works include the very funny play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), and the classic novel about vanity and its price, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).