 Role Nigel Bennett as Lord Arthur Savile |
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Anecdote "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime was also at the Dolman Theatre in Newport, South Wales. It's a play by Oscar Wilde. I played the title role. All I can remember is unashamed hamming for the audience. I still have some photos, and one glance is enough to make me cringe. Talk about over the top!!!"
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 Play Synopsis Lord Arthur Savile's engagement to the lovely Sybil Merton looks like eternal happiness - but all of this changes when Lady Merton's chiromantist Podgers reads Lord Arthur's palm. In secret, Mrs. Podgers reveals that she saw blood on Arthur's palm. In other words, at some point in Arthur's life, he would commit murder. To prevent his future wife from having to bow her head in shame for him, Arthur decides to commit this bloody deed before he marries.
For his first attempt, Arthur decides to poison his aunt, Lady Clementina. He obtains a beautiful candy capsule containing a poison known as Wolf's Bane. The capsule can be "swallowed or masticated, or if preferred, dissolved in liquid". Before Arthur can send the box of sweets containing the fatal one, Lady Clementina, Lady Julia Merton, and Sybil come to pay Arthur a visit. When Lady Clem sees that the exquisite box of sweets is for her, she offers one to Sybil. To Arthur's horror, Sybil chooses the lethal capsule. He immediately grabs the sweet from Sybil, and shoves another one in her mouth. Everyone is appalled at his strange behavior. When Arthur leaves the room, Baines, Lord Arthur's butler, surreptitiously removes the sweet from the box and dissolves it into Lady Clem's drink. When Arthur has returned, Baines exits and Lady Clem offers her drink to Arthur, who drains it to the dregs. In the second scene of this act, Arthur, after having his stomach pumped, decides to attempt a murder that does not involve poisoning. With the help of his finacée and a German anacharist named Rosa Winkelkopf, Arthur decides to murder his uncle, the Dean of Paddington, with an explosive umbrella. However, the umbrella fails to explode when the Dean of Paddington opens it. As soon as Arthur, proclaiming the umbrella is useless, throws it out the window, the umbrella explodes. Arthur faints as the act ends. Arthur is beginning to get desperate. After failing to murder Lady Clementina and the Dean of Paddington, Winkelkopf suggests death by smothering. She demonstrates this on Lord Arthur himself, and, to revive him, she throws a vase of water in his face. Once Winkelkopf leaves, Arthur attempts to kill Lady Windermere by tripping on a black thread and falling down the stairs. As always, his plan fails and Winkelkopf ends up unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. After she is revived by Arthur throwing a vase of water on her, Winkelkopf leaves. The infamous Podgers then returns to blackmail Lord Arthur. On this note, the scene ends. At the beginning of this scene, it is discovered that Podgers has committed suicide. By now, Arthur will do anything to kill someone. Winkelkopf enters and suggests killing Arthur's aunts in an explosion. While Arthur is busy keeping his aunts in the living room, Winkelkopf enters on her hands and knees and places the bomb under the table. During this time, Lady Windermere reveals that Podgers was "a complete and utter fraud". Then Lady Clementina notices that the table is smoking and Arthur realizes he must dispose of the bomb. He gives it to Baines, who puts it in the kitchen garden. Arthur's aunts leave and while Arthur is rejoicing over not having to murder anybody, Winkelkopf puts the bomb in Arthur's aunts' carriage. Arthur runs to the carriage and throws the bomb into the street. It blows up a horse trough and Arthur is arrested for disturbing the peace. The play ends with Baines telephoning the newspaper asking them to announce a further postponement of Lord Arthur's wedding. |
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 Links of Interest Read the Short Story On-line Visit the Oscar Wilde web site |
