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REVIEW | The Picture of Dorian Gray, Watford Palace Theatre - London
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There is a particular pleasure in seeing Oscar Wilde back in a room built for him. Watford Palace Theatre, all Edwardian red and gold, is the perfect frame for this bold new touring adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, from Tilted Wig, opened Thursday 1st October ahead of its UK tour.
Adapted and directed by Seán Aydon, this adaption of The Picture of Dorian Gray strips Wilde's only novel down to its most dangerous idea: what if you could keep the looks and let someone else (or something else) pay the price. In a society obsessed with youth and beauty, Dorian is offered eternal perfection. Perfection, as ever, must be paid in blood.
Jack Crumlin (West End’s Lonnie Byers in Stranger Things: The First Shadow) stars as Dorian, and it’s a canny piece of casting. Crumlin has that rare, almost unsettling beauty that makes the central conceit believable. He starts as a boyish, almost awkward innocent under the brush of Basil Hallward, played with tender restraint by Mark Oxtoby, and is then slowly unspooled by Mark Hawkins’ deliciously venomous Lord Henry Wotton.
Mark Hawkins is the engine of the night. Every epigram lands like a dart – Wilde’s dazzling wit intact, and you can see exactly why Dorian would trade his soul for a seat at his table.
Seán Aydon’s production is stylish, provocative and brisk, running at just over two hours including interval and doesn’t try to outdo the recent West End video-screen version. Instead, it goes analogue and intimate. Sarah Beaton’s set and costumes move from crisp whites and linens for Dorian’s golden youth to increasingly dark, blood-flecked velvets as the portrait, hidden upstage, does its grotesque work. Peter Small’s lighting does most of the horror for us, aging Dorian’s world with a slow yellowing, then bruising it. Russell Ditchfield’s sound design adds a low, persistent hum whenever the portrait is looked at, as if the
canvas is breathing.
Jack Crumlin’s great achievement is that he lets us watch the corruption, not just the charm. By Act Two, the stillness that made him so beautiful has curdled into something vacant. His scenes with Lydia Whitehead as Sybil Vane are genuinely affecting, she gives Sybil a spine that many productions deny her and the final turn, when Dorian finally confronts what he has become, is handled without cheap jump-scares. The horror is moral, not theatrical.
The only meaningful criticism that can be levied against the production is the lack of flexible interpretation which exists in the original Dorian Gray. The play was written to focus on themes of age, beauty and morality yet imagery of Lord Henry being devilish is lost. Furthermore Dorian’s debauchery does not extend beyond his social life, yet Wilde dedicates a whole chapter to what Dorian uses to fill the time in his increasingly meaningless life. As the nuance and complexity of Dorian Gray is lost, as is the true horror as he dawns on what his soul has become. This does not take away from the phenomenal performances provided, and translating a novel to a play is by no means an easy feat, yet it nonetheless feels important to comment on the missed subtleties that create the true story of Dorian Gray. Beyond a man who wanted to be beautiful forever, this is a story of how people can overindulge themselves in the mundane, leading to a neglect of what nourishes the soul. Dorian did not find joy and purpose in his hobbies nor his vices, he chose them to pass time and to distance himself from who he had become. The horror the audience should carry with them is that of a life wasted on impressions and superficiality, yet this production left the audience with the horror of vanity, which ultimately feels more like a surface level interpretation of the novel.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a touring production that understands its venue and audience. It’s clever, close-up Wilde, unsettlingly thrilling and razor-sharp on vanity in 2026. A portrait to die for, indeed.
★★★.5
The Picture of Dorian Gray plays at Watford Palace Theatre until 3rd October 2026, before touring until 7th November - Tickets and further information are available from the
