- ^ "Bunburying", which indicates a double life as an excuse for absence, is – according to a letter from Aleister Crowley to R. H. Bruce Lockhart – an inside joke that came about after Wilde boarded a train at Banbury on which he met a schoolboy. They got into conversation and subsequently arranged to meet again at Sunbury.[5] Carolyn Williams, in a 2010 study, writes that for the word "Bunburying", Wilde "braids the 'Belvawneying' evil eye from Gilbert's Engaged (1877) with 'Bunthorne' from Patience".[6]
- ^ Removing Wilde's name from the play billing caused a breach between the author and Alexander which lasted for some years; the actor later paid Wilde small monthly sums and bequeathed his rights in the play to the author's son Vyvian Holland.[22]
- ^ In a 2003 study, Richard Fotheringham writes that in Australia, unlike Britain and the U.S., Wilde's name was not excluded from billings, and the critics and public took a much more relaxed view of Wilde's crimes. A command performance of the play was given by Boucicault's company in the presence of the Governor of Victoria.[25]
-
^
"... you are aware of the mechanism, you are aware of Sardou" — Beerbohm (1970), p. 509[34]
- (Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist known for his careful, but mechanical plotting.[35])
- ^ George VI was not the first British king who had attended a performance of the play: His grandfather Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, was in the audience for the first production.[51]
- ^ Rutherford switched roles, from Miss Prism to Lady Bracknell for the North American production; Jean Cadell played Miss Prism. Robert Flemyng played Algy.[53] The cast was given a special Tony Award for "Outstanding Foreign Company".[54]
- ^ Twenty-three years earlier, Dench had played Cecily to the Lady Bracknell of Fay Compton in a 1959 Old Vic production that included in the cast Alec McCowen, Barbara Jefford, and Miles Malleson.[57]
-
^
The 2011 Broadway production's three nominations were
- Best Revival of a Play,
- Best Costume Design of a Play, and
- Best Leading Actor in a Play (for Bedford, who won for costumes).[65]
- ^ Wilde himself evidently took cucumber sandwiches with due seriousness. Max Beerbohm recounted in a letter to Reggie Turner Wilde's difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory offering: "He ordered a watercress sandwich, which in due course was brought to him: Not a thin, diaphanous green thing, such as he had meant, but a very stout, satisfying article of food. This he ate with assumed disgust (but evident relish) and when he paid the waiter, he said: 'Tell the cook of this restaurant with the compliments of Mr. Oscar Wilde that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.'"[72]
- ^ Since Bostridge wrote his article, at least one further musical version of the play had been staged: A show with a book by Douglas Livingstone and score by Adam McGuinness and Zia Moranne was staged in December 2011 at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith; the cast included Susie Blake, Gyles Brandreth and Edward Petherbridge.[113]
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