Back in 1992, when Matthew Bourne brought his Nutcracker to the Edinburgh Festival, no one could have predicted that this young modern dance maverick would go on to become the most successful choreographer in the world. Who knew that his cheeky Tchaikovsky rewrite was only the start? That between his gender-bending Swan Lakeand his ebullient Mary Poppins Bourne would conquer Broadway and the West End?

Now, 16 years later, he is returning to the Edinburgh Festival as king of the choreographic heap, without doubt the most commercially successful choreographer this country has produced. Every night, somewhere in the world, his company New Adventures performs one of his shows. In any one year, he employs between 70 and 100 dancers, a number unheard of in contemporary dance circles. And musicals? He’s got them, from My Fair Lady and South Pacific to Mary Poppins and Oliver!

No surprise, then, that there are barely enough hours in the day to maintain the tentacles of his global empire. Which is where the Edinburgh Festival comes in. It’s giving him the chance to mount his first original production since Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells almost three years ago and Bourne can’t wait. He may be a whiz at managing his back catalogue, but what he really wants is to get back into the studio and make something different.

“After 16 years it’s a treat to go back to Edinburgh,” he says. “My first visit there marked a turning point in my company’s history and we haven’t looked back since. To be invited back to create a new show, to be given that opportunity, is thrilling.”

On the surface, Bourne, now 48, comes across as the most affable of artists, but underneath the sly humour of his work you can often detect an undercurrent of tortured solitude. Look no farther than the doomed romantic heroes of Swan Lake and Highland Fling; poor Edward Scissorhands; or sad, sweet Angelo in The Car Man.

One senses that his new project, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, will tap into a still greater pool of anguish. Wilde’s novel, a classic piece of Gothic horror fiction, is about the deadly pursuit of decadence and debauchery. In a Faustian twist, the protagonist remains young and beautiful while his portrait in the attic ages grotesquely with each sin he commits. Bourne’s version swings far wide of the novel’s Victorian setting. Instead, his entry point is the idea of image, and the way it is manipulated and celebrated in our 21st-century celebrity culture. And surely obsession with youth and beauty is something we understand even better than our 19th-century predecessors did?

“What happens when attention is drawn to you through the camera or through a portrait?” Bourne asks. “A lot of people want to be your friend and give you things and celebrate you in a way that’s unreal. Yes, it feeds your vanity and opens doors but it comes with a price.”

Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears inevitably spring to mind, but uppermost in Bourne’s thoughts is the late actor Heath Ledger. “Ledger is not Dorian Gray, he wasn’t evil,” Bourne explains. “But he was a talented young guy from Perth who was suddenly catapulted into another world, the world of New York and Hollywood. He was quite a nervy guy by all accounts and everyone wanted to help him, urging him to take this and that. He ended up in isolation, a lonely man in New York with everyone giving him stuff to help him to get through it. And what happened? He ended up dead.”

Ledger, of course, didn’t have a portrait in the attic but the connection is there in a roundabout way. “With modern celebrity you can create a monster. Trying to hang on to your true self is the problem, who you really are, and Dorian Gray couldn’t hang on to that either.”

In Bourne’s staging the protagonist is a poster boy for perfume, the kind of iconic male model you find in Calvin Klein adverts. “It’s not about having a portrait in the attic; it’s much more about what happens to someone who is put on a pedestal. The way Dorian becomes famous in my production is through advertising, he’s the face of a fragrance. He’s the image you keep seeing on billboards – that’s the portrait.”

Bourne has been stalking celebrity – in the nicest possible way – since his youth, when he used to pursue stars for their autographs (his impressive collection includes Liz Taylor, Gene Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin). “When I was a teenager you could get to them,” he recalls. “You could be the only one standing outside their hotel and they would chat to you.

“I went to the premiere of Grease and actually managed to get up close to John Travolta, there were no barriers. That would never happen today. Now everyone’s so much more protected, so that in a weird way they have no connection with reality; they are kept at a distance. Since the death of John Lennon and others they have become more fearful of people.”

Already it’s apparent that this staging is going to be the darkest Bourne has attempted. After all, in the novel Dorian is a murderer. “He leaves a trail of death behind him, he’s very possibly a serial killer. So one of the things that struck me is the idea of the charming serial killer, like in Dexter or American Psycho.” How does that fit with Bourne’s famous talent to amuse, his wry and often comical world view? “The wit is there from Wilde, but I’m not going for humour. It has to be a darker universe than normal; it has to be less jokey.”

Neither will Bourne shy away from the novel’s homoerotic undertones: “Undertones? It’s absolutely obvious what is going on and Wilde is pushing me to go farther. I’ve also changed the sex of a couple of the characters.” So Sybil, the actress who captures Dorian’s eye in the novel, becomes a male ballet dancer; while Lord Henry, the corrupting influence, is transformed into a powerful female magazine editor.

Bourne and his regular collaborators, the designer Lez Brotherston and the composer Terry Davies, are using the Edinburgh Festival as a tryout. If Dorian Gray is a success, it will embark on an extensive tour beyond its Sadler’s Wells season in September. “We’re all taking a pay cut to do this,” Bourne says. “But if it is successful then we can perform it again and go back to normal rates.”

Not that Bourne need worry about his pay packet. Mary Poppins (which he co-directed as well as choreographed) is currently on a UK tour; Edward Scissorhands returns to Sadler’s Wells for Christmas; and in December Bourne choreographs – and co-directs – Oliver! for Cameron Mackintosh’s West End revival.

And then, nothing. At least as far as the commercial theatre is concerned. “It’s the last one I’m doing, no more musicials,” Bourne says. “I’m doing Oliver! for Cameron, because I have a great loyalty towards him and because I love the show. But I’m happy with what I’m doing with my own dance company. I don’t want or need anything else.”

Dorian Gray is at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (www.eif.co.uk 0131-473 2000), Aug 22-30, and at Sadler’s Wells (www.sadlerswells.com 0844 4124300) Sep 2-14