When you advertise a new work as a “glam rock musical, re-energising Oscar Wilde’s classic text for a modern audience” you naturally invite comparison with what has gone before. As a result, as you watch this 100-minute production you reflect on David Bowie’s Lazarus or the Barn Theatre’s modern adaptation of A Picture of Dorian Grey both streamed during the last year to great success or to the classic Rock Musicals such as The Who’s Tommy, Jim Steinman’s Bat out of Hell or of course Queen’s We Will Rock You with the soaring scores. Inevitably this new work captured in London in June 2021 falls short.
The Barn’s adaptation was an extraordinary disturbing modern retelling of the story of obsessive desire for beauty and sensual fulfilment with a wonderful cinematic capture and an evocative quietly threatening underscore that elevated the piece into a gripping modern gothic horror story. Everything is seen through the ubiquitous cameras of modern life to create a compelling disturbing warning about the impact of social media on the mental health of those obsessed by it. In Dorian, we have the original story and character names but reset as an aspiring rock star with his mentor/producer Lord Henry (played by John Addison) and his tragic interactions with Sibyl Vane, Basil Hallward and Charlie Rose (played by Robert Grose) on his way up to stardom in the first act and then his drug-fuelled decline at the height of his fame in the second and rejection of his “devil’s disciple” Adrian (played by Tristan Pegg, looking like an ex-member of The Clash).
