Makers of Spitfire Girls return to TBTL with The Picture of Dorian Gray

The company behind the hugely popular Spitfire Girls, which came to Theatre by the Lake (TBTL) in both 2025 and 2026 following popular demand, is returning to Keswick this autumn with a bold new adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Presented by Tilted Wig, in association with Watford Palace Theatre, the production comes to TBTL from Tuesday 20 – Saturday 24 October 2026, as part of a UK tour.

Full casting has now been announced, with Jack Crumlin, whose West End credits include Stranger Things: The First Shadow and To Kill a Mockingbird, taking on the title role of Dorian Gray.

He will be joined by Mark Oxtoby, who has appeared as Strickland in Back to the Future and Monsieur André in The Phantom of the Opera in the West End, as Basil Hallward, and Mark Hawkins, whose credits include The Woman in Black in the West End and on its UK and Ireland tour, as Lord Henry Wotton.

The cast also features Lydia Whitehead as Sybil Vane, Ayesha Griffiths as Catherine Vane, Lydea Perkins as Lady Victoria Wotton and Max Burnett as Romeo.

The production is adapted and directed by Seán Aydon, whose previous productions with Tilted Wig seen at TBTL include Spitfire Girls, The School for Scandal and Frankenstein.

Tilted Wig’s Spitfire Girls proved particularly popular with TBTL audiences when it first visited Keswick in 2025, returning to the theatre in May 2026. Now the company turns its attention to one of literature’s most famous and unsettling stories.

In a society obsessed with youth and beauty, Dorian Gray is offered the ultimate prize: eternal perfection. But perfection comes at a price – one that must be paid in blood.

Celebrating Wilde’s dazzling wit and dark imagination, this stylish, provocative and unsettlingly thrilling new production plunges audiences into a world where charm is currency, morality is negotiable and the truth always exacts its price.

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, first published in 1890, remains a compelling exploration of vanity, corruption and unchecked desire, with its questions around beauty, image and morality continuing to resonate with audiences today.

Set and costume design is by Sarah Beaton, lighting design by Peter Small and sound design by Russell Ditchfield, with Kaitlin Howard as fight director and intimacy co-ordinator.

The Picture of Dorian Gray plays at Theatre by the Lake Tuesday 20 – Saturday 24 October. Tickets are available here.