And I loved the mini send-up of French mime artists, led by the vivid Bryony Harrison.īourne’s production is full of such inventive touches and clever tonal switches, leaping from a whooping hoedown to jailhouse despair and a mighty melodramatic climax. Paris Fitzpatrick and Kayla Collymore are also fantastic as the corrupted young couple, dancing with lyrical, heart-wrenching expressiveness throughout, while Alan Vincent’s Dino is an effectively towering monster. He’s excellent, too, in the darker second half as his crimes come back to haunt him, particularly in a nightmarish psychological number which sees him partnering a dead body.
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Still, she has great chemistry with the sinewy Will Bozier as Luca, and he certainly gives this seducer the full hip-swivelling swagger – plus an unpredictable temper. Strallen is strongest in these vivacious moments, but I didn’t entirely buy her as the ruthless femme fatale who would dismissively kick a corpse. Yet there’s a gloomy lethargy to her until Luca arrives, and she suddenly finds a new verve and purpose. Zizi Strallen immediately locates Lana in her self-consciously slinky walk she’s always aware of the effect she has on others. But mainly we get all the information we need from the brilliantly tailored movement. There’s an assist from Lez Brotherston’s arresting design (that diner is palpably greasy and grimy) and Duncan McLean’s stylish projections, which switch between vintage ads, location shots and old Hollywood-style portraits of our main players at crucial points. Luca teaches Angelo to fight, but that only becomes part of his tragic transformation into yet another thuggish man.īourne’s characterisation is crystal clear throughout, which helps enormously given that the performances now have to be projected so much further. We also see the sweet, innocent romance between Lana’s sister Rita and sensitive young Angelo mocked by the others. There’s also one gay male coupling, and an amusing subsequent sequence where the male and female lovers of the same man bask in the afterglow, unaware of each other.īut otherwise Bourne stays fairly faithful to his period setting, interrogating a culture of toxic masculinity that sees Lana humiliated and objectified by her boorish husband, and, in turn, use her sexuality to engineer an escape route. That carnality is echoed by the company, the muscled, macho mechanics dancing with clenched fists, stamping feet and cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, while the women hoist their skirts and slap the floor. There’s nothing coy or cute about the sex scenes here: this is a sweaty tangle of lustful limbs, brutal grabs and thrusts, and a savagery that hints at the bloodshed to follow.
When the pair are finally alone, the atmosphere becomes dangerously charged and we all hold a long breath until they crash into one another in an eruption of forbidden passion. Lana, the bored wife of the local diner and garage owner, Dino, is immediately drawn to the stranger, Luca. It really doesn’t matter whether or not you know his source material: a packed Albert Hall audience was rapt throughout. Ironically, this small 1960s Italian-American town is named Harmony, one of the many witty elements that perfectly leaven this steamy, violent tale, and which further demonstrate just why Bourne is considered our finest dance storyteller. It’s on this stretch of empty road that we first glimpse the brooding stranger sauntering into town, the catalyst for the coming explosion. This new version is bigger and bolder than ever, with a massive cast of 39, a full orchestra (giving a magnificent account of Terry Davies’ reworking of the Rodion Shchedrin Carmen Suite), two retro cars, multiple cinematic screens, and a huge catwalk – framed with telegraph poles – that runs from the stage and all the way through the arena seats.
As part of the venue’s 150th anniversary celebrations, Matthew Bourne has retooled his turbo-charged 2000 production The Car Man, which riffs on both the opera Carmen and the film noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice. Never mind the summer heatwave – the hottest place in London right now is the Royal Albert Hall.