British stars fight to save Oscar Wilde's jail
CAMPAIGNERS SAY CONVERSION TO THEATRE THE `PERFECT' LEGACY FOR FAMED PLAYWRIGHT
Oscar Wilde described it as his “numbered tomb” — the prison cell where he spent two years after being jailed for gross indecency. And when he was released in 1897, he turned his “pitiless” misery and the execution of a fellow inmate into one of his greatest works, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Now Hollywood stars are pleading with the U.K. government to save the disused prison after ministers tried to sell it off to developers.
Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Fry — who portrayed Wilde on screen — are among those who want the building to be turned into an arts hub where the plays of Wilde, among others, could be performed. They fear that if the ministry of justice, its owner, sells it to the highest bidder, the building will be turned into apartments, and Wilde's cell, as well as the building where he spent his days in hard labour, will never be open to the public.
Dench said: “It is vitally important that Reading Gaol, a place of such culture, be used in a way that pays tribute to its artistic history, namely, to become a cultural and artistic centre. It would be a great gift, not only to Reading, as a town and growing population centre of the South, but also to the U.K. and the world as a whole.”
Branagh, who grew up in Reading, said: “In Oscar Wilde's iconic poem he says, `Each man kills the thing he loves.' Despite the undoubted challenges, don't let this wounded beast of a building be killed when it can be cured.”
The prison, built in 1844, was closed in 2014, and its future has been uncertain ever since. Justice secretary Robert Buckland has stressed the need to get “value for money for the taxpayer,” but a sale to a property developer who wanted to convert it into flats fell through in the summer, and the local council is in talks with the justice ministry to preserve it for the public. Alok Sharma, business secretary and MP for Reading West, is also in discussions with Buckland.
The council wants to take the site off the government's hands and use the building for a mixture of commercial and public use.
Rabble Theatre, a local company, is among prospective users of the building if the council is able to fulfil the plan to turn part of it into a theatre, arts venue and museum, and Dench said she would like to see the group move in. Toby Davies, artistic director of Rabble, said: “We have an extraordinary opportunity for poetic justice for Wilde by putting on his plays in the prison where this terrible thing happened to him.”
Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer, who is from Reading, said there was an “opportunity to create a cultural gem” out of the disused building. Fry said making it an arts centre would be a “perfect” legacy for Wilde.
The justice ministry said Friday that it had agreed a period of exclusivity with Reading borough council until March 15 for it to present a business case for the site. A prison service spokesman said: “Our aim is to ensure the best outcome for taxpayers and the community while complying with all planning requirements for this historical site.”
Wilde was convicted of gross indecency over homosexuality, which remained a crime in the U.K. until 1967. As a prisoner in Reading, he was addressed only as C. 3.3, as he was held in cell 3 on landing 3 of cellblock C. He wrote: “Each narrow cell in which we dwell is a foul and dark latrine, and the fetid breath of living death chokes up each grated screen.”
On his release in 1897, Wilde fled to France, where he wrote his poem and published it under the name C. 3.3. His authorship was only revealed in 1899, the year before he died, still in exile. It was about the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a soldier hanged at the prison for murdering his girlfriend.