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From 1DRI I'm Alice Levine and I'm Matt Ford and this is British scandal.

So Matt that is a wrap on the story of Oscar Wilde. Although it's set in the 1890s,

there's clearly and maybe quite depressingly a lot of parallels with the world today.

Yes, the scapegoating and fear-mongering of a certain group, a sense of moral panic,

the constant threat of public opinion. It just makes you realise how perilous it must have felt

to be gay in Victorian England. Yes and also the dawn of trial by media.

Oscar's was one of the first that we could see that kind of tabloid

sensationalism coming to the fore. Stoking the flames of paranoia and fear.

It doesn't actually feel very far from the world now, does it?

No and it's interesting drawing the comparisons in terms of our modern media landscape

and seeing the scandal sheets and pamphlets of that time release the heritage of our tabloid culture

today. There's a direct lineage between the sorts of publications that we're talking about

Oscar Wilde and the way that we cover celebrities these days and it just shows that the one

consistent thing is our country's appetite for gossip and scandal talking about people

and really enjoying other people's falls from grace. The gossip pamphlet was the side bar of shame

of the day. As Oscar said, there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about

and that is not being talked about and there really is no one better in the world to talk about

the legend and mythology of Oscar Wilde than our guest today. Merlin Holland is a British

biographer and editor as well as the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde. He spent over 30 years researching

his grandfather's life and works and he joins us next.

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