The Oscar Wilde Collection

"It is only tradespeople who are respectable; we are above respectability." Oscar Wilde? Nope. Oscar Wilde's mama, who was no stranger to the witty epigram herself, as viewers will learn in the hour-long 1995 bonus documentary The Lives and Loves of Oscar Wilde, which accompanies this collection of three BBC adaptations of Wilde's best-known plays--The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband and Lady Windermere's Fan--as well as John Osbourne's impressive novel-to-stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. All shot between 1976 and 1986, what the presentations lack in visual vivacity (these are, after all, BBC video productions), they more than make up for in sparkling conversation and sterling performances from such luminaries as Sir John Gielgud, Joan Plowright, Jeremy Brett, Peter Firth, Susan Hampshire, Margaret Leighton and Gemma Jones. "To be in love with oneself is the beginning of a lifelong relationship," Wilde penned in An Ideal Husband, and nothing so ably demonstrates that self-love and supreme confidence ("I have nothing to declare but my genius," said Wilde upon his arrival in America for a lecture tour) as these works, which continue to be performed and translated to the big screen a century-plus after his death (a wit to the last, Wilde, who died broke and scandalized in Paris, on November 30, 1900, observed, "my wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death; one or the other of us has to go."). As good an introduction to the life and works of Oscar Wilde as you're likely to find in a half-inch wide package, with the documentary devoting a considerable amount of time to the infamous relationship between Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas (which led to Wilde's imprisonment for practicing "the love that dare not speak its name"), this double disc set is definitely recommended. (R. Pitman)