★★★★☆
Matthew Bourne has been a lifelong film fan and throughout his career as a choreographer he has woven that love of the silver screen into many of his productions. So it was perhaps inevitable that he would one day turn to the ultimate dance film, The Red Shoes, and give it the Bourne treatment. The resulting production may need a bit of tweaking here and there but it has hit written all over it.
Bourne’s witty backstage melodrama follows the narrative template of Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film in which the young dancer Vicky Page is forced to choose between the man she loves and the career she craves. Her greatest moment comes when she is chosen to star in The Red Shoes, a new ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale. Disaster strikes when Vicky falls in love with the composer Julian Craster, sending her impresario boss, Boris Lermontov, into a jealous rage.
There’s no shortage of choreography here — it’s Bourne’s most classical yet, even to the extent of using pointe shoes, though he uses them sparingly. In the film, the ballet company is modelled on Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes; here the company is the postwar Sadler’s Wells Ballet, which allows Bourne to make affectionate nods to Frederick Ashton and Margot Fonteyn. His evocation of Les Sylphides is fun — if a little long — and his tribute to Le Train Bleu is a masterstroke of chic comedy. The manic Red Shoes ballet, which ends act one, is a surreal dream that becomes a nightmare.
The second act gets a little scrappy and Vicky’s life-or-death dilemma isn’t given the focus and oomph it deserves, especially since the character of Lermontov is so underwritten. Still, the dark ending, a neat twist in which life imitates art, is powerful and startling.
The designer, Lez Brotherston, has outdone himself with a gorgeous string of costumes that evoke the late 1940s with old-fashioned glamour and modern sensibilities. His set is defined by a huge proscenium arch that hangs over the action to suggest Covent Garden, the Monte Carlo Opera House and the East End music hall where Vicky and Julian are forced to dance for their supper. In a simple yet clever stroke, the arch rotates to flip from dancing on stage to drama backstage. Terry Davies has adapted Hollywood film scores by Bernard Herrmann to create a lushly theatrical dance score.
Advertisement
Bourne’s New Adventures troupe performs his choreography with tremendous spirit. As Vicky, Ashley Shaw channels the look of Moira Shearer in the film, while her dancing is a terrific blend of innocence and passion. Dominic North is an ardent Julian, while Sam Archer does what he can as Lermontov. The stars of the fictional Ballet Lermontov, Michela Meazza and Liam Mower, are a hoot.
Box office: 020 7863 8000, to January 29