On a starkly urban yet oddly opulent monochrome set and with costumes bang on trend, Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray is an astonishing and dynamic piece of dance theatre based on the 19th-century gothic tale.

In 21st-century London Dorian Gray is a photographic supermodel, the feted face of fragrance Immortal pour homme, and adored by both women and men in a sophisticated yet shallow society.

Bourne to be Wilde, Gray is soon in thrall to his own beauty and vanity, and the pursuit of his own pleasure with both sexes, a lust-driven fiend who knows neither limits nor compassion.

Gray is consumed by his increasing depravity, with tragic consequences for those around him.

Ballet goes street in this gender-swapping take on the original, with athletic scenes of homo-erotic abandon fluidly executed.

The disintegration of Gray’s personality and his descent into torment and chaos are brilliantly portrayed in a harsh contemporary setting, and the climax, where the anti-hero has blood on his manicured hands, is shocking and grotesque as his loft is littered with the corpses of his casualties.

Gray and his Doppel-ganger dance in perfect symmetry as his signature portrait hangs in tatters, and the entrance of the ghoulish hooded paparazzi is a slick touch.

Amazing grace?

Dorian Gray is raw, brutal and intoxicating, and filthy lucre well spent.