HE shares a birthday with Yasser Arafat and Dame Edna Everage.

He has the kind of enduring sex appeal enjoyed by Sean Connery. It makes the mere mention of his name make women of a certain age and discernment go wobbly.

He is Alan Bates. The man who wrestled naked on screen with Oliver Reed in Women in Love back in 1969.

At 67, he remembers the stir the scene called but laughingly declares it's not something he would care to attempt today.

Sex appeal, whether it be waxing or waning, is not something that concerns him, but it does concern the character he plays in Dorian Gray.

Trevor Baxter's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Faustian novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is the latest in a clutch of treatments of this gothic piece.

"My character is Mephistopholes, an evil influence but a man of seductive arguments. He corrupts a young man on the cusp of his adulthood at a vital moment.

"It is a story for everyone; a gothic tale of survival based on choices."

It is set around the turn of the 20th century and is, says Alan,"near enough to our time".

Although not averse to modern staging of classics, Alan says the message of the play should come through if it is well done. "I'm happy if something is done to huge, telling effect, but not if it is done just for the sake of it."

Dorian Gray comes to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, from July 31 to August 11, and a bonus for Bates fans, also stars Alan's son Benedick.

Benedick, named after the character in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, a role Alan always coveted, and eventually played, has worked on stage before with his father.

"We did a Simon Gray and a Turgenev play at Chichester together. I enjoy working with him; he's an excellent young actor.

"There are a lot of good young actors about and I worked with many of them recently at Stratford in Antony and Cleopatra."

Alan's co-stars in Dorian Gray are Margaret Tyzack and Ruper Frazer and the cast includes David McAlister, Joe Searby and Sarah Walton.

He's worked with most of them before, for as he says: "The older you get, the more your paths cross."

From his first film appearance in Whistle Down The Wind, to his first major role in John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving in 1962, Alan has made an equal impact on film, stage and TV.

"A Kind of Loving was a terrific start; great director, great script and a great cast including June Richie and Thora Hird.

"Like Tom Courtney and Albert Finney, for example, I was in the right place at the right time."

The 1960s was a time of gritty drama from such writers as John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker and Simon Gray.

And Alan was in the cast of The Mulberry Bush, the first production at the Royal Court for the English Stage Company.

Alan was, and is, in the thick of it and his last Arnaud appearance was in Simon Gray's well-received Life Support, directed by Harold Pinter.

As well as opening in Dorian Gray, Alan has just completed filming the role of the butler in Gosford Park for Robert Altman (of MASH fame) and as the governor of Massachusetts in The Salem Witch Trials.

"Acting is acting. You can do it at whatever age you are, as long as you can still get about! I'll play anything but I have been lucky in being offered such good roles throughout my career.

" I've made choices and I've wondered whether they have been the right ones sometimes. But doesn't everybody whatever they do?

"In the 60s, we all were aware that there was some good writing about.

"We were born at the right moment and given the chance to show our ability in these plays. And so it has continued throughout my career. I've enjoyed it all."

He's garnered awards along the way for what have become landmark productions.

These include Best Stage Actor awards for Simon Gray's Butley and a BAFTA in 1983 for his role as traitor Guy Burgess in Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad.

Most recently, Alan has been seen as the extraordinary father in the TV adaptation of Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate.

Fans will be happy to know that swimming and horseriding are keeping him fit for yet another decade of wobble-inducing performances.

Like his character in Dorian Gray, he's not planning to "grow old and horrible and dreadful" quite yet.

Sandy Baker