The Picture of Dorian Gray (1976 TV) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1976 TV) The Picture of Dorian Gray is a 1976 BBC video-taped production which formed part of the "Play of the Month" anthology series. It stars Peter Firth, Jeremy Brett, and John Gielgud. A 100-minute adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by John Osborne, it was first broadcast on 19 September 1976. This production was a critical success at the time of its first screening. In 2009 "The Times" called it the "most Wildean" adaptation of the novel, boasting "perhaps the best Dorian" and mentioning that John Gielgud "steals the show,
The Picture of Dorian Gray made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year. The longer and revised version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" published in book form in 1891 featured an aphoristic preface—a defence of the artist's rights and of art for art's sake—based in part on his press defences of the novel the previous year. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own right, as a literary and artistic manifesto. In April 1891, the publishing firm of Ward, Lock and Company, who had distributed