Arts Tonight 12 December 2011: Oscar Wilde

On tonight's programme, we report from Paris as the tomb of Oscar Wilde is restored at Pere Lachaise cemetery, funded by the Office of Public Works of Ireland. Sheila Pratschke, director of the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, who was instrumental in helping make the restoration of the Jacob Epstein sculpture possible, explains to Vincent Woods why it was necessary. We talk to Merlin Holland, grandson of Oscar Wilde, and actor Rupert Everett, who spoke at the ceremony. In Ireland, Gerard Hanberry, author of a new book on Wilde's family, More Lives Than One: The Remarkable Wilde Family Through the Generations (The Collins Press), takes us to some of the locations in the West connected to Sir William Wilde and the family. In studio, Dr Anne Markey, author of a new critical study, Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tales: Origins and Contexts (Irish Academic Press), and Dr Jarlath Killeen, author of The Faiths of Oscar Wilde (Palgrave MacMillan) and The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (Ashgate), discuss the contexts and influences of stories such as The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant, and what these stories can tell us about Wilde's artistic outlook. And an extract from The Happy Prince is read by Siobhán Mannion.

* * *Our thanks to the Centre Culturel Irlandais for hosting our visit to Paris. www.centreculturelirlandais.com/ * * *