Oh well, it's that time of the term again. The young Oxford students get their shot at the bigtime, spending immense amounts of effort and even larger amounts of money trying to create a proper, professional production in a proper, professional environment, only for their grandiose dreams to come across as somewhat juvenile and silly. Or at least that is the impression "The Picture of Dorian Gray" gives.

This is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel, and boy, can you tell. The evening starts and finishes, and is annoyingly interrupted at regular intervals, with The Author (Peter Harness) coming onto a darkened stage and declaiming chunks of Wilde's prose. Whether this is a joke (ho ho ho) at the fact that Harness is the person who adapted the novel, or a humble acknowledgement that his version is a play which doesn't stand up without someone coming on stage to read out the stage directions every now and then, is unclear. Whichever, at least he gets to have fifteen or so changes of costume, of which he must be very proud.

A quick rundown of the plot, for those of you still vacillating about whether or not to spend your money (incidentally, press tickets are free, and I still felt cheated). Basil Hallward (Brian Mullin, sounding just like Michael York in "Cabaret", but none the worse for that) is an artist. He paints a picture of the ravishing boy Dorian Gray (Leander Deeny - apparently his real name) which is just so damn good that Dorian starts to feel quite jealous (naughty, naughty) that he'll grow old as the picture stays young. Inspired in this feeling by the amoral Lord Henry Wotton (Michael Tosh - no comment), Dorian prays, and his wish comes true. This leaves him free to pursue a life of debauchery, with the picture in an attic getting uglier and uglier. Eventually, in the best melodramatic way, the good end happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

There are so many bad things about this play that I really don't know where to start. Things which should be hinted at are made explicit: they even put the distorted portrait visibly on stage so that everyone can see that a life of sin makes your soul look like a 1980s popstar. Things are made explicit which should be hinted at: if the novel had been as openly homosexual as the adaptation is, then Wilde's trial would have been an open and shut case. Not good, at all.

Not to say, of course, that the production is a complete flop. Jessica Mautner, the hair stylist, should be congratulated. The direction is competent, and a couple of scenes, especially some of the big aphoristic setpieces from the novel, are handled very well: lots of good lines shoehorned into a sort of screwball comedy nobody-listening-to-anybody-else framework. The director, Ragna Skold, should be moderately pleased with herself (and probably already is). But please don't encourage her.

James Womack, 13.11.02