London, 1987. As Dorian and Tobias approach their first anniversary, each reflects on the time they’ve spent with one another. From the day they first met on the Royal Crescent to their most recent adventures in Mayfair, both have secrets they’ve been concealing from the other… but now is the time to make their most heartfelt confessions.

It’s 1987 and Dorian and Tobias are reflecting on their first anniversary. And, of course, confessing.

It’s an odd realization that a celebratory story like this is actually a surprisingly great introduction to the world of the series, but it’s true. This is audio drama pared down to the bones, just Toby, then Dorian, spilling their thoughts onto a recording. You know everything about the two here, or at least where they end up: one a vampire with a love of life. The other a concept, an ideal. The Vitruvian hedonist.

Toby first, because he’s one part vampire, one part teddy bear. Hugh Skinner’s work here is disarming in the most appropriate way possible. Toby is adorable. He’s your sweet, slightly absent-minded friend who’s a little old fashioned, a little eccentric but always very present. Skinner, and writer and director Scott Handcock, explore that here as Toby prepares for what he thinks is the inevitable. He loves Dorian. Dorian loves him. He’s pretty sure that isn’t enough. Skinner is great here, funny and kind and desperately sad and backed perfectly by Rob Harvey’s poignant score.

But there are two sides to every story and Dorian has a lot to confess. Skinner’s precise, light touch is thrown into starker relief by Alexander Vlahos’ dark playfulness as Dorian. There’s balance to the two characters, expressed only when you hear them together. Toby is light-hearted, kind, sad, hungry. Dorian is measured, calm, stoically whimsical. As Vlahos dives into the story, we get an idea not just of what the two men have faced but how they’ve dealt with doing so together and alone. Immortality of two different kinds, love of one. It’s smart, desperately sad, clever, romantic and a perfect signoff for Dorian in that it’s also no sign off at all.

The set is rounded out by ‘Gray Matters’, a short story that follows Dorian through a one night stand and how the specific gravity of That Painting draws everything and everyone in Dorian’s life back to it. It wraps Dorian’s loneliness and ennui around a beat I’ve never seen expressed so well before. Namely that Dorian views the painting as his excised older self, youth and experience mixed in himself but with age removed. It’s a subtle beat and one that ties into the closing moment where he expresses what we all suspected. Sooner or later he’s going to be found out and that’s going to be a new experience. One he’ll relish. After all, he’s Dorian Gray.

Except, like Dorian, it’s not quite done. ‘Before Your Eyes’ is a short film, written by Handcock and directed by David O’Mahony. Georgia Amodu Curtis stars with Vlahos as Jada, a young woman who has been hired to kill Gray. Holding him in what is clearly a murder room, she listens and we watch as he explains who he is and what happened to him. O’Mahony and Timothy Blore cameo as figures from Dorian’s past but the weight of the story is carried by Amodu Curtis’ endlessly competent killer and Vlahos’ extraordinary combination of loneliness, rage, and joy as Dorian. There’s a moment at the end where he gives Jada a choice and shifts, in seconds, from fire and wrath to desperate, unspoken plea which is just extraordinary and speaks to both his abilities and how well he knows this fractious, dark, utterly compelling lost soul of a character.

Verdict: Happy birthday, Dorian. I suspect you’re far from done and that’s good news for everyone. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

Click here to order The Anniversary from Big Finish

‘Before Your Eyes’ can be watched for free on Big Finish’s YouTube channel