Wilde's Still So Earnest

In Hollywood, where the trend has been to take traditional themes and give them a modern twist (think Baz Luhrmann, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge), the plays of beleaguered English gentleman Oscar Wilde have become particularly popular.

Wilde's appeal seems to span generations, enticing both the more literary appreciative adults and a more visually demanding teen audience.

Autumn sees the release of Oliver Parker's film version of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon as the four central characters.

Accessible

Targeting a youthful audience is obvious in the casting - as it was in the adaptation of An Ideal Husband, also directed by Parker in 1999.

An Ideal Husband tells the story of Sir Robert Chiltern, a successful and happily married Government minister whose ideal existence is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed.

Sir Robert turns to his old friend, Lord Goring, an idle philanderer, for help, and matters become increasingly complicated in an intricate tale still as accessible today as it was in 1891.

Acerbic

Wilde's appeal is not only in his attractive protagonists but also - and primarily - in his sharp script. Verbal fashions have come full circle and today's youth appreciate an acerbic tongue, double entendres and sarcastic comebacks - just look at how well -received Dawson's Creek is.

The flowery language of Hollywood romance doesn't suit the overly cynical British as much as the sharp critiques Wilde's leading ladies make of their pea-brained husbands, or his top-billed men of their fickle and unimaginative female counterparts.

Comments from Earnest, such as this manservant's overview of love - "I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person" - are enough to make the most modern humorist giggle.

Life story

The film tells of two young English gentlemen who decide to bring some excitement into their lives. They do so by bending the truth slightly, and the rebellious, cheeky, unstuffy attitudes of these supposedly 'proper' characters will appeal to film fans growing increasingly tired of the typical English celluloid produce.

The Picture Of Dorian Gray has also been given the big screen treatment, in 1945 by Albert Lewin, and in 2001 by Alan Goldstein; Lady Windermere's Fan has also been turned into four films, the earliest dating back to 1916.

Wilde's life, too, has been turned into a film script, as he was shown to be an arrogant but vulnerable creature whose relationships with young men ruined his life and led him to becoming an outcast living out his days in jail.

Symbolic

The openly-gay comedian Stephen Fry played Wilde in the eponymous film; Bosey, Wilde's young lover, was portrayed by a then unknown Jude Law, in the Brian Gilbert-directed period piece.

Critically acclaimed, but with little box office success, Wilde brought the life of the troubled playwright to the fore in a modern culture all too aware of sexuality and discrimination in their everyday lives.

"I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age," Wilde once famously said. It is clear his works will continue to strike a note with, and indeed tell the tales of, many ages to come.