Dorian (NHB Modern Plays)

‘The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.’

Dorian Gray - handsome, hedonistic, narcissistic - sells his soul for eternal beauty. Basil and Henry join him for the ride until it all goes too far, and the hangovers become murderous…

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was a succes de scandale on its publication in 1891, accused of violating the laws of public morality. It immediately captured the minds of its readers, the spirit of the age, and the soul of a man with nothing to declare but his genius.

This thrilling stage adaptation by Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley follows one man’s descent from glorious debauchery to epic self-destruction, intertwined with Wilde’s own life story, his tragic persecution, and ultimate imprisonment in Reading Gaol. Its first full production premiered at Reading Rep Theatre in October 2021.

‘Eye-poppingly experimental… an explosion of glamorous and grotesque characters - some Victorian, some contemporary and some pure camp figments of the imagination… a dizzying adventure that always dares to dazzle… so very brave and original’
- Guardian

‘A radical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s gothic novel that reaffirms and celebrates the piece’s significance as a touchstone of queer art’
- The Stage

‘Sizzles with homoerotic fervour… a deliciously camp rebuke of the attitudes which saw a man humiliated, brutalised and outcast for being gay’
- Telegraph