New Play Exploring the Story of Oscar Wilde's Lovers Opens on November 16

"He is a wretched little brat!" exclaimed George Bernard Shaw in deep frustration at the hold 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas, had over Oscar Wilde. Using historical testimony, "Wretched Little Brat" by Brian Merriman reveals the characters behind a story that scandalised a sexually hypocritical Victorian nation and went on to adversely influence law, morality and the fight for LGBT equality to this day. This frank exploration challenges the "gay stereotypes" embedded by Wilde's public scandals as having serious consequences for the generations of LGBT people who pursued equality in the decades that followed. Running for one week only in the Sean O'Casey Theatre, St Mary's Road, East Wall, Dublin 3, this new full length play reveals the passion and politics artfully manipulated by a "wretched little brat".

Starring Sean Doyle as 'Bosie', the play episodically explores key elements in a society struggling to contain a view of its own invented morality. "Wretched Little Brat" weaves together the many lives affected by the scandal and ensuing fallout. Brian Graham Higgins is the hapless Wilde in this docudrama that spans two centuries, from 1870 to 1945, while David Flynn plays Robbie Ross, Wilde's most loyal lover. The myriad of people who were caught up in this drama (including Prime Ministers, great names in literature, wives, mothers and children) are portrayed by Stephen Gorman (The Older Men), Ailish Leavy (The Mothers), Anne Doyle (The Wives), and Eli Caldwell (The Young Men) in a fast paced theatrical journey through love, litigation and legacy.

"Post-referendum Ireland allows us an opportunity to finally unpack how this out of control, excessive, vengeful existence became the normal benchmark for LGBT people. 'Bosie' Douglas's hatred of his father and love of a lifestyle he could never sustain became the only story in public discourse from which we were all judged and had to justify. It bears no relationship to the truth of ordinary LGBT people and the play sets out the evolution of the tale, its myths and prejudices clearly," said playwright Brian Merriman. "Had Bosie not been having a two year simultaneous relationship with the Solicitor General's nephew Maurice Schwabe, would he rather than Wilde not have ended up in the dock? When a society bands together to protect their own, there is always a cost."

"Wretched Little Brat" is an exploration of the developments that broke families, destroyed reputations, embedded stereotypes and confirmed the culture of shame used to degrade LGBT lives to this day. The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival has already staged 3,000 performances of new work in the past twelve years. The world's biggest gay theatre festival has consistently offered a stage to allow the established norm to be challenged in works that range from stories of modern LGBT living to unpacking a taught constructed history.

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