More than 136 years after it was first published, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray remains as beguiling and as relevant as ever.<\/p>\n
The late-Victorian gothic examines society’s obsession with youth and beauty through the eponymous anti-hero, who becomes consumed with his own image after posing for a portrait.<\/p>\n
After making a Faustian pact to remain as he’s depicted in the artwork \u2013 while it decays in his place \u2013 Dorian is driven mad by its deterioration, which reflects his own moral failings and cruelty.<\/p>\n
Already the subject of many an adaptation, Wilde’s only published novel is being revisited for the BBC, with a new reading narrated by Bridgerton<\/a> star Luke Thompson.<\/p>\n The actor spoke exclusively to Radio Times<\/a> about what first attracted him to the text and whether he saw any parallels between Dorian and Benedict Bridgerton.<\/p>\n What drew you to The Picture of Dorian Gray for The Read?<\/p>\n Luke: I\u2019ve always been curious about why stories stick around. I\u2019d heard about this book, and 140 years later, it\u2019s still provocative and unsettling, and still thrills people. And if the page seems unappealing, having someone speak it to you can help bring the story to life. It takes us back to being a kid somehow, I think.<\/p>\n Would you ever want to star in an adaptation of the novel?<\/p>\n Luke: Well, I just have! This job wasn\u2019t a practise round for something else, I\u2019d hate to watch someone just warming up..<\/p>\n Want to see this content?<\/p>\n Accept and continue<\/p>\n Why do you think The Picture of Dorian Gray is still so important and what do you think it can say about our society today?<\/p>\n Luke: We seem to live in a moralising world where everyone is very keen on deciding what\u2019s good and bad. We like to think we have moved on from the Victorians, but maybe we\u2019ve just dressed up our moralising differently. This story asks: what if what\u2019s moral is not as important as what\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s a pretty wild thought to entertain, when we are so obsessed with justifying what\u2019s right, wrong, productive, healthy or useful, and we\u2019re not comfortable with beauty just for the hell of it. We say it\u2019s superficial . A part of us can\u2019t stand that beauty doesn\u2019t need explaining, that it\u2019s profound, maybe more profound than morals. This thriller takes that idea to its craziest limit.<\/p>\n With Bridgerton series 4 coming out recently, did you spot any parallels between the show and Dorian Gray, particularly when it comes to Benedict?<\/p>\n Luke: Well they\u2019re very different worlds and characters, but I guess Benedict is by nature is uncertain, quite open to influence, and seems in his own gentle way to have been driven more by beauty than by moral codes.<\/p>\n The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Read with Luke Thompson will air on BBC Four and iPlayer at 9pm on Sunday 22 March.<\/p>\n Check out more of our Drama<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 136 years after it was first published, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray remains as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-342433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}