A WILDE night is expected in Dorchester.

The Picture of Dorian Gray will be performed in the Corn Exchange, Dorchester on Friday May 15 from 8pm.

Fresh from a critically acclaimed UK Tour of The Trials of Oscar Wilde, which was

performed to great acclaim in Dorchester’s Shire Hall last year, European Arts

Company returns with a thrilling adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s only novel The Picture

of Dorian Gray.

The production celebrates the 125th anniversary of its publication.

Adapted by Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland and John O’Connor, The Picture of

Dorian Gray is set in the decadent world of Victorian London.

A beautiful, narcissistic young man becomes infatuated by an exquisite portrait that Basil

Hallward has painted of him.

He makes a Faustian pact that he will remain forever young while the picture grows old.

Combining drawing-room comedy and gothic horror, this is a gripping and hugely

entertaining theatrical event that showcases Wilde’s remarkable talent.

The production is touring to 55 venues all over England, Scotland, Wales and Northern

Ireland.

It finishes on June 20 at St James Studio Theatre in London on the exact date 125 years ago that Wilde’s only novel was published.

The company will perform in Dorchester Corn Exchange on Friday May 15 – poignantly the very venue that Oscar Wilde once visited in 1883 to give a talk on ‘The House Beautiful’ through the Dorset Lecture Society.

The Picture of Dorian Gray features a talented cast familiar from stage and screen,

including Guy Warren-Thomas as Dorian Gray (Spooks The Greater Good, Downton

Abbey), Gwynfor Jones as Lord Henry (The Woman In Black in the West End, The

Hound of the Baskervilles, Oldham Coliseum), and Rupert Mason as Basil Hallward

(EastEnders, A Touch of Frost and most recently The Trials of Oscar Wilde for EAC).

Contact Dorchester Arts for tickets.