Oscar Wilde: The Ideal Husband

Josef Karlík, Rudolf Krátký, Vlasta Fialová, Dagmar Pistorová, Jiřina Prokšová and Rudolf Walter in the lead roles of the Brno radio adaptation of Oscar Wilde's famous comedy The Ideal Husband from the year 1917. 1962. Sarcasm, irony, numerous paradoxes embodied in witty bon mots are what we expect from Oscar Wilde's comedies. The play The Ideal Husband also carries a social-critical charge. The title character - Robert Chiltern - has gained his fortune and position through deception, and just as he is about to embark on a glittering political career, it is time to pay back the sins of the past. But Wilde certainly did not write a simple moral, and perhaps the unwaveringly virtuous Lady Chiltern will see that sometimes the ends are the means. Her husband's friend, Lord Goring, will lead her, as well as the audience, to realise that the ideal husband, like the ideal politician, is a figure from the realm of dreams.