Dorian Gray

The Confessions of Dorian Gray imagines a world where Dorian Gray was a real person. He makes a deal with the devil that he will never age or suffer, and instead his portrait will take on all the damage he inflicts upon himself (Read/Listen to The Picture of Dorian Gray for more details. Big Finish's novel adaptation is excellent). The book was extremely controversial upon its publication because Dorian is an incredibly amoral character. The Confessions of Dorian Gray highlights Dorian's lack of morals. He drinks, he does drugs, he sleeps around, and he gets into fights. And there are always mysterious circumstances and supernatural things he needs to deal with along the way. Very few people are aware of who he really is, and he does his best to keep it a secret.

At the end of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian gets fed up with his life and slashes his portrait to bits. In Confessions of Dorian Gray, Dorian continues to live for hundreds of years, reinventing himself every once in a while when his lack of changing starts to become obvious. The stories come from various points of his life, and they are all acted out sort of like a diary. Dorian is telling us what is going on, with other actors filling in the various characters. The first story in the series, This World Our Hell, centres around Dorian spending time with Oscar Wilde during Wilde's final days in Paris. From there, he travels all over the world, meeting all and sundry and thwarting evil spirits that are even worse than he. Monsters are always trying to steal his soul, but he doesn't have one, which usually ends up for the best for him. Dorian has fought wars (The Prime of Deacon Brodie), been told to murder Sherlock Holmes (Ghosts of Christmas Past), and has even had near-fatal encounters with himself (The Darkest Hour).

The Confessions of Dorian Gray is my favourite Big Finish range by a long way. There isn't a story that I don't like anywhere in the bunch.

If you want to get into Dorian Gray, check out Frostbite, which is available for free, so it's a great starting off point. The stories usually stand alone, so it is easy to listen to any stories that sound interesting and you don't need to worry about context. Series 3 is a bit different, since all the stories are set in the present day and are somewhat related. It comes as a box set, whereas the first two series are sold both together and as a set.