Matthew Bourne's The Lord Of The Flies...

Last Friday Stuart and I went to see Matthew Bourne's The Lord Of The Flies at The Sadler's Wells in London's glitzy Islington.

Using twenty-two locally auditioned young dancers, Matthew Bourne’s touring production vividly displays the children’s descent from innocence to their baser instincts.

William Golding’s novel has been tweaked a little so that the boys have become stranded not on an island but in an abandoned theatre - the clothes rails taking the role of the bushes and trees and a drum stick for the conch shell.

It was by turns exciting, entertaining and visceral as the regimented school boys gradually descend into savagery.

Maybe not up there with Bourne's great works but as an outreach project it's a triumph.

Highly recommended.

Olivier Dubois Company’s Tragédie...

Last Friday night Stuart, Darren and I went to see Olivier Dubois Company’s Tragédie at the Sadler’s Wells in London’s glitzy Islington.

Consisting of three parts; it was in turns repetitive, desensitising, hypnotic, visceral, a little bit rude. Nine men, nine women and not a stitch on.

Initially all the naked dancers did was walk from the back of the stage directly to the front of the stage and turned on the heels to repeat the process once again. This was performed to a dull thumping bass line. After half an hour we kind of got it. We were desensitising to the nudity.

As the piece progressed to the later stages however things got more interesting. The dancers started to twitch. And jump. And move in diagonals. The music got more chaotic and the movement reflected this. Soon the piece became more tribal with a wild pumping beat and the dancers started to synchronise their pulsating actions.

By the final section the dancers were performing to a thumping techno beat and hectic, vibrant dancing ended up as writhing around on stage in an ecstatic orgy of humping flesh.

We loved it.


Teaser Tragedie from Tommy Pascal on Vimeo.

Matthew Bourne;s Sleeping Beauty...

Last week Stu and I went to see Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at the Sadler's Wells in London's glitzy Islington.

It completes Bourne's trilogy of Tchaikovsky's ballets having mastered both Nutcracker and Swan Lake. It is however probably the weakest of the three - the source material is just a little thin. A king's negligence leads his daughter to be put to sleep for 100 years and then awoken by a kiss. The end. Bourne however manages to weave a love story into the plot by having beauty's young beau be turned into a vampire at the time of slumber and so being able to survive the 100 years himself in order to administer the awakening kiss. And it sort of works as a device. It was a little odd to have vampires running around though.

The production was great though: great dancing, great costumes, and great music. All Bourne's usual trademark twists and tricks were deployed using mime, shadow, symmetry and comedy.

Matthew Bourne: Play Without Words...

Last night Stu and I went to see Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words at the Sadler's Wells in London's glitzy Islington.

Inspired by Joseph Lesley's film The Servant Play Without Words is set in early 1960s London. Using the ingenious trick of having up to three identical looking people play each part at the same time we get treated to what is, what was and what might have been been all at the same time. It's a sort of bewitching multiverse with three parallel streams playing out together.

We have the master, his servant and his new lady all at each others trousers and throats in tripicate. A trio of thugs and brace of housemaids add to the wonderful commotion. A revolving set, night club, gay pub - the action dances upstairs and downstairs as the tables are turned and turned again.

We loved it. It is original, sexy, witty, vibrant and funny. If you get a chance to go, do! 

Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures...

Last night Stu and I went to see Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures at the Sadler's Wells in London glitzy Islington.

As part of the company’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, Matthew Bourne has returned to his roots in Early Adventures, a programme of three early hit pieces that launched the career of “Britain's favourite choreographer” and saw the birth of the style, wit and sheer entertainment that have become hallmarks of the New Adventures company today.

Funny, dashing and joyful. We loved it.

SPITFIRE – An advertisement divertissement (1988) was Bourne’s first hit, and something of a signature piece. It places Perrot’s famous Pas De Quatre, made as a kind of diva-off for the four leading ballerina’s of the 19th Century, in the world of men’s underwear advertising and mail order catalogue photography. Both a celebration of male vanity and an affectionate comment on the preening grandeur of the danseur noble, “Spitfire” was last seen at the Dance Umbrella 25th Birthday Gala in 2006 in a 6 man version. Here it's in its original 4 man version with all of the original solo’s restored.

TOWN and COUNTRY dates from 1991 and has never been performed since. It is remembered, though as the piece that most crystallized the Bourne style; gloriously witty and ironic, but also strangely moving and heartfelt. In “Town and Country” this most English of choreographers looks at notions of national character and identity from a bygone era through the evocative music of Edward Elgar and Noel Coward amongst others. Almost a dance-revue in structure, it includes a potted 3 minute version of the classic film “Brief Encounter” , a “green carnation” encounter between two repressed gents, a clog dance with a “violent” conclusion, a touching “Wuthering Heights” themed love story, a daring and wild ride on children’s scooters and an eccentric version of “Pomp and Circumstance” played on the ukelele!

THE INFERNAL GALOP – “A French dance with English subtitles” - premiered in 1989 and is typical of Matthew Bourne's early work; "a Franglais Spectacular" and a characteristically witty and astute satire of English perceptions of the French, inspired by all the familiar and much loved icons of France in the 1930s and 1940s: Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, Mistinguett and so on. In a series of surprising and charming vignettes, Bourne evokes the period, with all kinds of sly humour and “Ooh-la-la”, setting his dances to the familiar and distinctive cabaret chansons of gay paree, before closing with the inevitable "infernal galop" as Offenbach's famous can-can from Orpheus in the Underworld is correctly titled. On the way, he pokes fun at the grand French amour, a lowlier encounter in a street pissoir, the pretensions of the fashion industry catwalk, and the recurring image of the matelot, much beloved of Cocteau and Genet. Typical of The Infernal Galop's intelligent inner wit, is the unexpected treatment of the great post-war hit “La Mer” (The Sea), sung by its composer Charles Trenet, offering an effetely dressing-gowned merman, serenaded by a trio of sailors! A similar approach is brought to the hilarious intrusion of a street "band" into a covertly romantic encounter, or the intentionally overblown lovers' duet for Piaf's famous “Hymne a l'Amour”. This is France as seen by the uptight English imagination, an equal mix of ancient hostility and deep affection, with all the traditional clichés joyously paraded for our entertainment!