Review Roundup: Digital Reimagining of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY - What Did the Critics Think?

The Barn Theatre's contemporary take on the Oscar Wilde classic brings the Faustian tale kicking and screaming into a world of Instagram, Facebook and dating apps and stars Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) in the title role of Dorian Gray.

Starring alongside Whitehead are Alfred Enoch as Harry Wotton, Joanna Lumley as Lady Narborough, Emma McDonald as Sibyl Vane and Russell Tovey as Basil Hallward and Stephen Fry as the Interviewer.

Tickets for the production are currently on sale internationally, and can be purchased via pictureofdoriangray.com.

Let's see what the critics are saying...

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Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: The show teems with big names, including Stephen Fry as the interviewer and Joanna Lumley as Lady Narborough. But it is Alfred Enoch who steals the show as Henry Wotton, whose intimate friendship with Dorian brings the homosexual undertones of Wilde's text to the surface. Dorian's sexuality is openly unfixed here: he falls for Sibyl but has previously been on Grindr and flirts with both Henry and Basil. It makes for a thoroughly modern Dorian Gray, and its moral message - of a generation being sucked into a vortex of anxiety, self-obsession, shame and suicide though social media - chimes loudly.

Gary Stringer, British Theatre: Wilde's original story features earnest truths about our obsessions with youth and beauty and our fears of growing old and obsolete. Our current digital age is the perfect platform to address these universal issues, and this engaging production certainly attempts to do just that. However, despite an impressive cast, like Dorian himself, it falls victim to this excess of ambition, and the core message is diluted. Perhaps as with all social media, less is often more.

Dominic Cavendish, Telegraph: Still, this is undeniably a substantial cut above much else we've seen from British theatres since the virus struck. The production - miraculously delivered within lockdown constraints, on a shoestring of £25k - musters a ton of whizzy visuals and somehow coats its lead in an added aura of beauty. Recommended then, just, but outright social-media addicts may find their attention straying to their other devices.

Rosemary Waugh, iNews: The Picture of Dorian Gray has that slow car crash, can't-stop-looking-even-though-I-know-it's-wrong quality that online celeb culture also has. No matter how many times we're told the perfect picture doesn't match the reality and how many celebrities reveal the cost and horror of online fame, we still keep logging on, scrolling, clicking and posing. So, well worth a watch - but it won't make you feel good about yourself.

Clive Davis, The Times: When time is heavy on their hands, the characters in Oscar Wilde's classic story are inclined to go to the theatre. "There is sure to be something on somewhere." The words ring hollow today, of course. In Henry Filloux-Bennett's daring modern-day version we see individuals trapped in their cocoons during lockdown. Online encounters have taken the place of the social whirl.

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