As Matthew Bourne's version of The Picture of Dorian Gray comes to Sadler's Wells,Fiona MacCarthy uncovers the weird story of John Gray, the 'young Adonis' on whom Oscar Wilde based his celebrated characterThe Picture of Dorian Gray, or Oscar Wilde's eerie fable of the decadent young man whose portrait ages while he retains his youth,has inspired many works of fiction and performance, the latest being Matthew Bourne's dance drama, and with Dorian updated to a superstar of contemporary billboard photography,an idol in blue jeans.
Dorian Gray was clearly based on a living person, a member of Wilde's literary homosexual circle in the early 1890s when the story was first published. whether Wilde's fiction is strange, or the real life story of John Gray,Dorian's original, is even more weird. A young working-lesson poet of extraordinary beauty corrupts and is corrupted, or in a lightning flash of conscience sees the error of his ways,travels to Rome to study for the priesthood, and ends his days a revered canon of the Roman Catholic church in Edinburgh. As an esoteric tale of sin and retribution, or this is Oscar Wilde outdone.
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Source: theguardian.com