Tom Stoppard

I think that one of the things which make us feel for Wilde is what Richard Ellman calls that berserk passion.

That he met somebody, and it was as though the rest had been written by Aeschylus.

It just went on and on.

And it was self-aware.

And he knew that it was tragic.

I think that he was a notable victim of that English genius for cutting down the people who are too smart for their own good.

And I think there was quite a lot of pleasure, much of it expressed in quite malign terms, when he fell.

quite like to read what the Daily Telegraph said at that moment, but there were worse things said.

I mean, real glee to typify Wilde from our perspective as a gay hero is to do him a disservice.

He was a hero to humanity.

There was an edge to that delighting paradox which made it more than humorous.

It was more than wit.

He did make people, he forced people to consider the unconsiderable.

Right, correct.

The first thing I liked about them is that they were two of them.

And the double act, you know, has a long and honorable comic tradition.

And I can see why, because they're fun to write.

And these two people, not Shakespeare's version of them, but mine...

I turn them into the kind of double act which everybody is familiar with.

There's usually one who's a little brighter and quite often angry with the other one who's a bit dim but sweet and so on.