It’s 23 years since Matthew Bourne ditched Swan Lake’s traditional tights and tutus and created one of contemporary dance’s most iconic images: the black-crested, bare-chested male swan.
At its premiere, there were some walk-outs and even tears among young ballet fans; two decades on and it’s a firm cult classic. This latest revival has seen sections of the plot streamlined and its sets, battered by touring, sensitively revamped; Bourne’s central choreography — ever inventive — needs no such overhaul.
If every ballerina wants to play Swan Lake’s coveted Odette/Odile pairing, then Bourne’s version (The Swan/The Stranger) has long been on every male dancer’s wish list. For that reason, it attracts big names; the latest of which is Matthew Ball. That this 24-year-old can seriously dance is hardly a surprise; the revelation is the physicality he brings to these complex roles. His Swan, eroticism idealised, is full of menace; his Stranger (those 1990s-style leather trousers aside) strikingly sensual, though at times boyish.
The rest of the cast — particularly Liam Mower as the lonely prince who retreats into flights of fantasy and Katrina Lyndon as his unsuitable girlfriend — are also uniformly excellent, all with a great comic touch.
Until January 27
