Dorian The Musical
04 July 2024
Southwark Playhouse Borough
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
Dorian: The Musical is currently having it’s premiere run at the Southwark Playhouse Borough, you can catch it until 10 August. Don’t let my rating of three stars stop you from seeing this new musical, it is fantastic and very enjoyable! So, let me explain why the mid-range rating.
This musical takes on the story of Dorian Gray, but catapulting it into a more modern setting. With a rock music score, it’s a very dynamic production with some absolutely brilliant recurring songs. In this version, Dorian is an aspiring rock star, deeply lonely, yearning for love and recognition. He meets Harry Wotton and his wife, who want to make him famous; celebrity photographer Baz, who wants to capture his soul in art; and of course Sibyl Vane, an opera singer who falls deeply in love with Dorian. While the characters are similar to the book’s original, they’re updated and more explicitly in love and lust with Dorian. The similarities are strong and make for a great basis of the story of a rock star deduced by sex and drugs and rock n roll.
However, leaning heavily into these music industry cliches is also where the weakness of the plot changes lies. The auditorium is decorated with portraits of musicians who died young, the infamous “club 27”, the night club the characters often go to is also named Club 27, these hints are very heavy handed and difficult to miss. Seeing as we meet Dorian in his early twenties, only giving him a handful of years to indulge in his vices is definitely taking the edge out of the story. While the vices themselves are intensified, there just isn’t enough time passing between the completion of his portrait and everyone telling Dorian that it’s a miracle that his face hadn’t changed. I doubt anyone would even notice if their 27yr old friend had not gained a single wrinkle or blemish in the six years they’ve known them. The contrast between a deteriorating painting (hidden away from view) and an eternally youthful face is the main point of Dorian’s story, but that is taken away by only giving him six years to corrupt his soul in.
This really weakens the musical and makes it feel a little silly towards the end. Sure, adding Dorian the rock star to club 27 seems like a great idea at first, but once you consider his actual story, the years of debauchery it takes to corrupt his soul so much that the portrait becomes a hideous reflection of that enough for Dorian to suffer the consequences, trying to boil this down into five or six years, that are mostly simply skipped in this production, is a gargantuan task that would have needed a lot more stage time to explain. Or at least some kind of 90s-movie montage. Instead, we are asked to believe that six years of indulging in vices has turned Dorian’s soul into an irredeemable, monstrous thing, and that all his friends and lovers are baffled that his youthful face has stayed youthful at the ripe old age of… his 27th birthday?
Having said that, the cast is a stunning collection of ridiculously talented singers and actors, perfectly selected for each of their roles. The variety and strength of vocal talent here is absolutely beautiful, and combined with the most gorgeous costume design I have seen in a very long time, it makes for a visually and aurally delighting performance. There weren’t even any stand-out performances because they were all just so ridiculously good!
The score is also exquisite, with strong and emotionally touching rock songs full of character. If only Dorian was given more time to truly learn what corruption does to a person, this could have been a five star show. The cast and music definitely deserve five stars. But with how weak parts of the plot really drag down the overall appeal of the show, I feel I can only give three. Still, it’s a wonderful start for a show that could really go far.
