Chris Gray saw The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Oxford Playhouse.

Leander Deeny

An abiding fascination of The Picture of Dorian Gray is to observe how it reflects -- in truth, actually anticipates -- events in its author's tragic life.

The intense friendship between the wise-cracking, hedonist aristocrat Lord Henry Wotton and the impossibly beautiful youth Dorian has its parallel in Oscar Wilde's fatal liaison with Lord Alfred Douglas.

It remains a moot point, of course, which was the corrupter and which the corrupted in the real-life affair. All evidence shows, though, that once Wilde and Bosie embarked on their life of debauchery, it was the younger man who made the running.

Thus it is in Wilde's novel. The sheer, gleeful wickedness of Dorian is what chiefly jumps out at the audience from the well-judged performance by Leander Deeny in the new stage version by Peter Harness staged by a student company until tomorrow (November 16).

A serial seducer of women; an enthusiastic indulger -- it is implied -- in the love that dare not speak its name; a cold, calculating blackmailer; eventually even a murderer -- the sweet-faced Dorian is the baddest of bad hats. That famous portrait, revealing the true state of the rake's soul, must indeed be a ghastly sight for those who come to see it, tucked away in the attic room.

Alas, members of the Playhouse audience are not among their number -- not from where I was sitting anyway. This is a bit of an authorial/directorial cop-out, I'd say.

Even more of one is to hide the ravages of evil transferred, in death, to their proper place on Dorian's face. This climactic scene should surely have been attempted, difficult though it would be. That said, there is much to commend in this good-looking production (designer Lily Steadman), under director Ragna Sk-ld.

Beside's Mr Deeny's fine central performance, there is an expert -- and, at times, very moving -- study of the effete artist Basil Hallward from Brian Mullin, and an affecting portrayal of the spurned actress Sybil Fane from Polly Findlay.

Wilde's many splendid aphorisms emerge largely intact, but Peter Harness, in the role of narrator, is not assisted by having to speak many of his lines to the accompaniment of loud music, and William Tosh's Lord Henry occasionally comes across as rather irritatingly camp in the Graham Norton mode.