A welcome return to the world of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray for Alexander Vlahos in The Spirit of Christmas, a perfectly paced pair of deliciously dark stories for the holiday season.

First up is ‘Desperately Seeking Santa’, in which writer Tim Leng sets Santa up as a killer who breaks into Dorian’s house one December. The casting of David Warner as Santa is inspired and Dorian, along with vampire lover Tobias Matthews (Hugh Skinner) try to hunt him down before he spreads mayhem.

The story starts with a gruesome murder, and ends equally unpleasantly, yet amongst the horror there is plenty of humour, dark though it may be. There is also plenty of carol singing, along with a neat twist or two at the end.

The second story, Alan Flanagan’s ‘All Through the House’ is set on Christmas Day. Toby and Dorian check into a mysterious hotel, and of course things quickly go wrong. Before they can escape their doom, Dorian is confronted with a ghost from his past and has to make a decision with consequences for his future existence.

The setup is simple – Dorian and Toby must make their way to the thirteenth floor to The Man Upstairs (Gabriel Wolf). Not only does it entertain, but the story also sows the seeds for the next (and final) season of Dorian Gray.

Apart from the central characters, the cast is sizeable, and Katy Manning steals every scene as the delightful Isadora Rigby. The rest of the cast includes Sophie Aldred, Lisa Bowerman, Tim Allen and Miles Richardson.

Extras includes a third disc of interviews, outtakes, music and ‘Frostbite’, a winter vignette set in New York.

Released in December 2015 by Big Finish.

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