**Dorian: The Musical | Southwark Playhouse | ★★★☆☆**
A modern musical retelling of *The Picture of Dorian Gray* had the potential to be either utterly fabulous or utterly abysmal, yet it somehow lands in between.
Oscar Wilde’s novel, a cautionary tale against the worship of youth and beauty, resonates with today’s image-obsessed audience, and this production taps into its timelessness. Written and directed by Linnie Reedman, with music and lyrics by Joe Evans, *Dorian: The Musical* sets Wilde’s tale to rock music, recasting Dorian as a moody rockstar. It’s glam, energetic, and a little absurd, with a *Phantom of the Opera* brand of campness.
The reimagining aims to bring Wilde’s Faustian tale into the current moment, but its updates are largely superficial: the portrait is now a photo (edited to look like a painting), opium is swapped for cocaine, and there are a few throwaway references to social media. The intentionally Victoriana aesthetic of the set and costuming – with Dorian and the rest of the cast draped in velvet, pearls, lace, and a bit of leather – nods to both 19th-century decadence and 20th-century glam rock but leaves the current moment slightly ignored.
Where it does embrace the 21st century is in its depiction of gender fluidity and sexuality, presenting characters in a world of debauchery and hedonism. In Wilde’s novel, written when homosexuality was a crime, sex was always the subtext – “the love that dare not speak its name”. Wilde’s text swells with the passion of suppressed love, so much so that his prose was used as evidence against him in court for sodomy.
In Reedman’s retelling, queerness is openly embraced, promising to “present a fairy-tale world where anything is possible – and no boundaries exist”. This sounds exciting and true to the novel’s spirit but ends up removing the stakes. Everyone is in love with everyone, making the romances hard to care about, and Dorian’s life of drugs, sex, and rock and roll is not scandalous for a 21st-century rockstar.
The show shines when it embraces new inventions. The character of Victoria Wotton, a footnote in the novel, takes center stage with dandiacal wit. Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson’s deliciously droll performance cuts through moments that risk feeling over-sentimental – a classic Wildean trick. Megan Hill’s Sibyl Vane, also fleshed out by Reedman, is less feeble than Wilde’s version.
Unfortunately, Dorian falls flat, coming across as more wimpish than glamorous. Recasting Dorian as a rockstar turns him from muse to artist, changing the dynamics of Wilde’s fable and losing some of its power.
But perhaps this doesn’t matter. Wilde’s aestheticism was about worshipping the surface, and this production, at least visually and musically, is a delight. Wilde famously cautioned in the preface to *The Picture of Dorian Gray*: “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Put that way, I guess I’m just a three-star critic.
*Book tickets here*
**Read more:**
– *The Picture of Dorian Gray*: Succession star Sarah Snook shines
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**Dorian: The Musical | Southwark Playhouse | ★★★☆☆**
A modern musical retelling of *The Picture of Dorian Gray* had the potential to be either utterly fabulous or utterly abysmal, yet it somehow lands in between.
Oscar Wilde’s novel, a cautionary tale against the worship of youth and beauty, resonates with today’s image-obsessed audience, and this production taps into its timelessness. Written and directed by Linnie Reedman, with music and lyrics by Joe Evans, *Dorian: The Musical* sets Wilde’s tale to rock music, recasting Dorian as a moody rockstar. It’s glam, energetic, and a little absurd, with a *Phantom of the Opera* brand of campness.
The reimagining aims to bring Wilde’s Faustian tale into the current moment, but its updates are largely superficial: the portrait is now a photo (edited to look like a painting), opium is swapped for cocaine, and there are a few throwaway references to social media. The intentionally Victoriana aesthetic of the set and costuming – with Dorian and the rest of the cast draped in velvet, pearls, lace, and a bit of leather – nods to both 19th-century decadence and 20th-century glam rock but leaves the current moment slightly ignored.
Where it does embrace the 21st century is in its depiction of gender fluidity and sexuality, presenting characters in a world of debauchery and hedonism. In Wilde’s novel, written when homosexuality was a crime, sex was always the subtext – “the love that dare not speak its name”. Wilde’s text swells with the passion of suppressed love, so much so that his prose was used as evidence against him in court for sodomy.
In Reedman’s retelling, queerness is openly embraced, promising to “present a fairy-tale world where anything is possible – and no boundaries exist”. This sounds exciting and true to the novel’s spirit but ends up removing the stakes. Everyone is in love with everyone, making the romances hard to care about, and Dorian’s life of drugs, sex, and rock and roll is not scandalous for a 21st-century rockstar.
The show shines when it embraces new inventions. The character of Victoria Wotton, a footnote in the novel, takes center stage with dandiacal wit. Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson’s deliciously droll performance cuts through moments that risk feeling over-sentimental – a classic Wildean trick. Megan Hill’s Sibyl Vane, also fleshed out by Reedman, is less feeble than Wilde’s version.
Unfortunately, Dorian falls flat, coming across as more wimpish than glamorous. Recasting Dorian as a rockstar turns him from muse to artist, changing the dynamics of Wilde’s fable and losing some of its power.
But perhaps this doesn’t matter. Wilde’s aestheticism was about worshipping the surface, and this production, at least visually and musically, is a delight. Wilde famously cautioned in the preface to *The Picture of Dorian Gray*: “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Put that way, I guess I’m just a three-star critic.
*Book tickets here*
**Read more:**
– *The Picture of Dorian Gray*: Succession star Sarah Snook shines
