Theatre 2017: Review Nine - The Red Shoes

Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes, Theatre Royal, Norwich. February 2017.

As has become clear to regular blog readers I have developed a real love of ballet, and especially those choreographed by Matthew Bourne.  A group of friends contemplated travelling to London in the height of the Christmas madness to see this but as Norwich was announced as a tour stop we decided to see it closer to home.

Theatre location didn't seem to matter at all for as soon as the curtain rose you were fully immersed in the show and travelled between London and France with the cast as the story unfolded.

Although Mr Norfolkbookworm is a huge Powell and Pressburger fan, and has seen the film, I only had a vague outline of the plot in my head but as with the best storytelling that didn't matter at all as it all unfolded clearly and with great emotion in front of me. In fact when it comes to emotion on stage I think that this was one of the most erotic pieces I've seen as well as the most romantic - I utterly believed in the love and relationship of the two leads.

The set was so clever, for the most part recreating a theatre on the stage with the house curtains spinning to take you front and back stage as the action needed. When we were taken to France this again was clearly and simply shown with a simply balustrade and a back drop. I think the way to sum up the whole set is 'deceptively simple' with the finale coming totally out of the blue (for someone unfamiliar with the film) and packing an incredibly emotional punch.

Everything about this production was superb, the dancing, set, costumes, music all worked together to create a feast for the senses.  I think that special credit must go to the dancers who had to fake poor dancing as part of the plot - I can only imagine how hard it is to make something look bad while doing it safely and professionally.

As a friend said afterwards - the only problem with this show, and anything by Bourne, is that there are so many details you just want to see it again instantly to make sure you catch everything. Sadly for us however it is a total sell out in Norwich and this won't be possible currently.  I do urge you to give it a go if it tours near where you are this year.

This is definitely my show of the month for February and I think it is likely to appear in my 2017 top 10 at the end of the year.

Theatre 2016: Review Nineteen

Mary Poppins, Theatre Royal Norwich. July 2016.

Back from Greece for less than 24 hours and straight away I'm at the theatre - nice to see nothing changes!

Mary Poppins was a show that I'd dithered over for a while before biting the bullet and buying the (for Norwich) quite expensive tickets.  As a child I'd never watched the film and when Mr Norfolkbookworm and I sat down to watch it a couple of years ago I remember not being that impressed and only half watching it. However I am intrigued by P L Travers herself, especially in the light of her book about child evacuees to America during WW2 and the Saving Mr Banks film.

Reading the programme before going in raised my hopes more as we saw that the choreographer for the show was none other than Matthew Bourne.  I'm pleased to say that after watching this I no longer have the aversion to Poppins that I had before.

Although not being that familiar with the source film I could see that there were major differences but I liked this re-imagining. It wasn't as saccharine sweet as the film and it certainly wasn't as politically insensitive, Mrs Banks is no longer an absent parent figure but rather a woman struggling with the realities of life - she was an actress and is now trying to be a good/respectable upper-middle class wife.

Mary Poppins herself was also portrayed better for me, she is more human, less perfect and more "practically perfect!" The children were delightfully naughty, not just neglected and Bert nailed the role.  I'm not sure the addition of the 'bad character' was needed as she just became a little pantomime rather than real.

The fantasy scenes had been changed hugely - no dancing penguins, merry-go-rounds or tea parties on the ceiling. What replaced them were beautifully choreographed dance scenes lit to be totally Technicolor and visually stunning, with incredibly strong vocals.

The show wasn't perfect, I thought it was a little long and that it finished in the wrong place - there was a much  more obvious stop point for me...but on the whole it was a great night out.

Interestingly the creative team behind the reworking of this classic have just finished a new version of Half a Sixpence at Chichester which we are off to see next month - I think I will break my rules and watch the film version of this before going so I can compare it again to the new staging.

Theatre 2016: Review Ten

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, Theatre Royal, Norwich. March 2016.

Talking about this production is hard, it isn't that I didn't totally enjoy it but at the same time I there was a lot about this production that left me cold - and I know these views are going to put me in a minority.

In fact I've been feeling so conflicted over this show that I've been talking about it loads with the other people I went with and each time I 'see' something new and simultaneously like it more and less.

From the subtitle "A Gothic Romance" you know that you are going to get something different from a classical ballet and I was fine with that - after all this is the third Matthew Bourne adaptation I've seen and none of them have been in anyway traditional. I didn't mind that the fairies were vampires and looked more like extras from a Tim Burton film, that was fine.

My worries started with their first arrival however where there was the beautiful music and the beautiful dancing but the two just didn't seem to correspond at all, I felt that there was no actual interpretation of the music.

We then met 21 year old Aurora and in her first scene she lays on her back, on her bed shows off her bloomers and rolls down her stockings - this is going to be quite a sexual performance rather than a sensual one...

The garden party scene was nice, and then at the end of the first act came the part I truly loved when Aurora and the gardener's boy dance together - they moved together beautifully and as well as being sensual there was character growth as Aurora threw off her sophisticated, sexualised, behaviour and became child like in true love.  The final scene with the enchantment was also very clever.

After the interval 100 years had passed so to highlight this we had a group of selfie-taking teenagers outside the overgrown, enchanted house, quite amusing in a way but when coupled with the huge projection of the narration to show time passing it all felt just a little much to me. This whole production made me think of other cultural references (Twilight, Tim Burton and Baz Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet) and I think this perceived lack of originality is what has really coloured my thoughts.

I liked Act Two but again it was very sexual, not sensual, and sometimes I had absolutely no idea what the dancers were trying to tell with their set pieces.  All of it was beautifully choreographed and danced but I lost the story, and again the only totally convincing scenes were when Aurora and her true love - the gardener's boy - danced together. The skill to dance that well and yet appear asleep/enchanted is incredible and at its peak reminded me, favourably, of Romeo and Juliet which is the pinnacle of all the ballets I've seen.

This sounds terribly damning, and I was very tired the night I saw this, but I am pleased I saw it - you can't love everything you see and I didn't (despite this review) dislike this ballet, it just wasn't as good as others I've seen and this made me sad.  I can't wait to see both more ballet in general and more Matthew Bourne ballets.

Theatre 2015: Review Six

Edward Scissorhands (ballet), Theatre Royal, Norwich. February 2015.

It has been nearly two weeks since I saw this and yet I still find myself at a loss when trying to write about it.  For all the right reasons I hasten to add - it was a piece of perfect theatre.

I'm pretty sure I saw the movie back in the 1990s but again I went to see a Matthew Bourne ballet knowing very little of the plot intricacies and once more it didn't matter - the story just unfolded naturally in front of me.

Often theatre reviewers and critics say that if you notice things like the scenery and the lighting then there is something lacking in the event but in this case absolutely everything was perfect and worked together - you were supposed to notice the lights, the nets etc. At the end I was crying and yet hadn't realised that this was the case.

I came out of the performance gobsmacked that there were empty seats and it is only because I couldn't fit it in that I wasn't back at the Box Office buying tickets to see this again and again.  The one thing I feel bad about it telling my mum that she has to see this only to find that her local theatre isn't showing it.

Theatrical Interlude 31

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2013.

Last year I tried opera for the first time and found that, at least the one I saw, wasn't for me. Since then I've been thinking about ballet and trying to find one to see.  The version of Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Macmillan has been recommended but I'd also heard a lot about the Matthew Bourne's staging of Swan Lake, thus when I found out it was coming to Norwich I knew I had to see it.

Now before seeing it I knew nothing about the ballet or the story at all (I've not even seen Black Swan) and I decided that I wouldn't  look it up. I wondered if a whole story could be told completely through music and dance only.

I'm pleased to say that it really can, well at least in this version it really can. From curtain up in act one right through to the end I was spellbound, and by the end I did have tears rolling down my face. How talented are the dancers that I really forgot I was watching men on the stage but just saw swans gracefully moving and then violently reacting?

I know that some people who read my blog are going to see this later in the tour and so I'm not going to say much more - I want the impact for them to be as great as it was for me, but I am looking forward to talking with them about it afterwards!

I shall be eagerly scanning the theatre guides looking for more Matthew Bourne productions and equally really searching for a ballet to see at the Coliseum in London complete with live orchestra. Suggestions of what to see gratefully received.