Late Night Live — Full program podcast

The famous writer Oscar Wilde died alone in a French hotel in 1900. Since that time, so much has been written about the man - much of it rumour and speculation. In his new book, 'After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal', Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland sets the record straight. The book is thirty years in the making and is an exploration of Wilde’s posthumous reputation and how his imprisonment for homosexuality affected Wilde's family, friends and literary legacy.
Guest: Merlin Holland, Oscar Wilde's grandson and author, Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal
Producer: Ali Benton
Originally broadcast in January 2026.

Established in Moscow in 1989, the 'Night Wolves' motorcycle club continues to operate as a powerful propaganda arm of the Putin regime. Plus, the writer Sisonke Msimang defends the legacy of Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman, the African woman trafficked through early 19th Century Europe as a 'freak show' spectacle. 
Guests:
Dr Olga Boichak, Senior Lecturer in digital cultures, Sydney University
Sisonke Msimang, writer and activist, author of 'Defending the dead: the many afterlives of Sarah Baartman' in the latest Griffith Review

Our regular US commentator, Bruce Shapiro, looks at how President Trump is caught between pressure at home to get out of the Iran war, and pressure from Israel to stay in it.  Plus why use of the agricultural weed killer Paraquat has just been allowed to continue in Australia, despite being banned in many other countries. And this year's Census is getting more personal. 
Guests: 
Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor with The Nation magazine and Director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma
Sarah Rogers, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Melbourne
Liz Allen, demographer, ANU

Anna Henderson on Pauline Hanson's discrimination court loss, and Labor rejecting Ed Husic's genocide motion at their national conference. How technology is transforming modern warfare and creating a new global arms race. Plus, one hundred years on, LNL looks at the dark side of Route 66. 
Guests: 
Anna Henderson, SBS World News Chief Political Correspondent | National Press Club Director
Steve Feldstein, author of Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare
Dr Daniel Milowski,  author of 'Route 66 and the Formation of a National Cultural Icon: Mother Road to Mythic American Byway'

Australia likes to think it has no history of slavery, but two-thirds of Australia's colonial governors had links to the slave economy of the British Empire. A new book, Legacies of British Slavery in Australia and New Zealand reveals how slave money shaped the colonies. Plus, veteran architecture critic Paul Goldberger examines what Donald Trump's building agenda says about his politics, power and legacy.
Guests: 
Professor Zoe Laidlaw, historian, University of Melbourne, co-editor with Sally Lydon of 'Legacies of British Slavery in Australia and NZ'
Paul Goldberger, former architecture critic for The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and the author of 'Why Architecture Matters.'