Matthew Bourne’s Early Adventures
This trio of pieces highlights Bourne’s early work, including his first commercial success ‘Spitfire’, which cheekily indulged the audience with images pulled from a men’s underwear catalogue. The images were certainly provocative and pleasing but the performances were distracting in that they felt rough around the edges and under rehearsed.
The next piece, ‘Town and Country’, was divided by an interval and the second half suffered as a result. ‘Town’ was a nostalgic trip to pre-war Britain, and featured some impressive choreography. It was the most accomplished piece of the work, with fine performances from all members of the cast.
‘Country’, on the other hand, meandered through a supposedly-idyllic scene populated by idiot yokels and animal glove puppets.
The final piece, ‘The Infernal Galop’, was thankfully devoid of French stereotypes and focussed on the dirty streets of Paris, finishing with an obligatory dig at the Can Can.
Whilst this trio of pieces had moments of titillation and humour, backed up by an evocative set with great musical accompaniment, it fell flat in too many places: The most notable area being the division of ‘Town’>from ‘Country’.
Theatre Royal Brighton, 19 May 2012
Rating:
Matthew Robinson
Matt doesn’t mention that the audience for this event was largely of women of a certain age for whom having the men’s underwear felt a bit rough around the edges would have been a bonus, and they might have been able to help with the under rehearsal too!
On Thursday night there was a definite party atmosphere with plenty of laughter from a house full of discerning balletomanes.
Andrew Connal