The Red Shoes review, Sadler’s Wells – Matthew Bourne conjures the impassioned, hothouse world of ballet – UK Times

Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes is a swirl of colour and intensity. Adapted from the 1948 film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this stage version wonderfully conjures its 1940s world of ambition and obsession.

Bourne, Britain’s most successful choreographer, has always loved film – his very first company was called Adventures in Motion Pictures. Created in 2016 for his New Adventures company, this Olivier award-winning production is no step-by-step replay of the film but it is steeped in its source material. Bourne confidently reshapes the material for the stage, opening out scenes and tweaking plotlines, but his boldest changes feel cut from the same cloth.

As in the film, ballerina Vicky is caught between art and life: the demands of her career, and of possessive impresario Boris Lermontov, clashing with her new love for struggling composer Julian Craster. The Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, from which the film takes its name, tells the story of a pair of red shoes that force the wearer to dance forever – a symbol of art’s dangerous lure.

And the boundaries keep blurring. With long-term collaborator Lez Brotherston, Bourne pulls us into a backstage world. As we watch the Ballet Lermontov, Brotherston’s marvellous proscenium arch set spins, taking us behind the curtain scenes as dancers stretch, fix their costumes, getting ready to rush back on. As the story moves to Monte Carlo, we see Bourne’s evocation of a 1920s beach ballet, with his characters strolling through the staged action.

Rather than use music from the film, Bourne incorporates scores by film composer Bernard Herrmann, orchestrated by Terry Davies. It gives the work a cinematic sweep, while allowing a range of styles for the ballet scenes. Bourne has immense fun with performance and rehearsal scenes, packing a wealth of ballet history into his deft parodies. When Vicky leaves the Ballet Lermontov, there’s an irresistible glimpse of a seedy music hall bill, from bored showgirls to an unnerving ventriloquist’s dummy.

As Vicky, Ashley Shaw shows the burning intensity of the heroine’s ambition. She glows as Lermontov’s eye falls on her – the right place and the right time, but also the immense drive that has brought her to this exact moment.

Julian is more sympathetic here than in the film’s selfish boyfriend. In a tender, tense duet, we see Shaw and Dominic North’s Julian struggling with professional frustration, trying to help one another but stuck in their own feelings. Reece Causton’s Lermontov needs more menace. He’s strongest when he has mostly dancing to do, but lacks weight in scenes when he looms over the action.

Supporting roles are vivid and precise, with Liam Mower splendidly sharp and funny as the ballet master Grischa. The whole production is rich with detail, every moment adding depth to the story’s impassioned, hothouse world.

At Sadler’s Wells until 18 February