THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL
Sadlers Wells at the Lilian Baylis Studio
15.12.2015
for The Reviews Hub

Hard to pigeon-hole Arthur Pita's Little Match Girl. “Dance Theatre”, officially, but this unique entertainment embraces so many genres and influences, in a very satisfying hour on the stage.
It has a distinctly European feel – though Hans Christian Andersen's Denmark seems a long way from the fictional Italian town where the Pita sets the action.
As we file in, Frank Moon is already on stage, giving a foretaste of the live music which is such an important part of the show. Mandolin, violin, beatbox and much else besides, including a high-profile solo for the ethereal voice of the theremin. Echoes perhaps of Fellini and his house composer Nino Rota.
Just four dancing, singing actors take on all of the roles – and what splendidly drawn roles they are; some traditional, like Nonna Luna, the ghost of Fiammetta's grandmother, some less so, like Hank the Astronaut, whose LEM the matchgirl helpfully ignites for his return to earth. Audience favourites are the grotesque Donnarumma family, Fulvio and the two “ugly sisters”, who callously celebrate their Christmas while the starving girl watches their shadows on the window-blinds.
There are many such marvellous moments – the town's lights extinguished as Fiammetta knocks on each door, the bullying match boys, her competitors, their fistfuls of tapers (think Struwwelpeter) making menacing music of their own, grandmother's gravestone, the stepladder to the moon – a huge disc which turns at the scene change to reveal the earth seen from space. And, at the end, while on earth life has moved on, and lighters have replaced matches, in the heavens the Little Match Girl is lighting the stars …
Superb performances all round, with impressive quick changes of character and costume. Angelo Smimmo is Nonna Luna, whose Mai Più Freddo, Mai Più Pianti lullaby is a musical highlight, as well as Fulvio, the Donnarumma father. Valentina Golfieri and Karl Fagerlund Brekke are the OTT daughter and mother, as well as the match boys. Brekke is also the kindly lamplighter – a nicely imagined duet with his pole. In the title role, Corey Annand exactly captures the weary pathos of the dying girl – some beautiful solos as she tries to sell her wares, with tentative leaps and twirls. A gentle pas-de-deux on the Sea of Tranquillity with her astronaut (Brekke again). Even at the end, when she finds happiness at last, her joy seems tempered by shyness. A wonderfully compelling characterization, frail, waif-like and totally convincing as the little girl lost in a cruel world.
This is pure Christmas magic, with a strong moral message, and deserves to become as much a traditional part of children's festive entertainment as The Nutcracker or The Snowman.

LORD OF THE FLIES

LORD OF THE FLIES

New Adventures and Re-Bourne at Sadler's Wells

11.10.2014

Golding's cautionary tale has been staged before [ and filmed twice ]. Now it's an inspired dance piece from Matthew Bourne's New Adventures and Re:Bourne.

Adapted, with typically creative perversity by Bourne and his co-director Scott Ambler, it retains characters and events from the novel, and successfully captures its spirit, despite giving the island the elbow and stranding these lost boys on the cavernous stage of a deserted playhouse.

As we take our seats, the excited buzz is echoed through the open scene dock; it builds in a crescendo of whistles and rioting before the choirboys, smartly regimented, come marching in.

The fixtures and fittings are imaginatively pressed into service – costume rails, wicker skips, fire buckets. The conch is a [Shell] oil drum, Piggy is crushed by a massive lamp dropped from the flies. The boys forage for crisps and icecreams.

Bare feet, bullying, tribalism mark the breakdown of civilization. We see violent subjugation, a showdown, and a tsunami of rubbish thrown down onto the stage before the UN blue beret rides to the rescue. The teddy bear, who's survived it all, is abandoned with the last vestige of innocence as the boys troop off the way they came in, leaving Ralph [Sam Archer] to ponder the catastrophic events played out on the jungle stage.

Much of the dancing is visceral and strongly rhythmic. Simon, the dreamer, beautifully danced by Layton Williams, has a wonderful solo with cello accompaniment [Robin Mason, presumably the only live musician against the pulsing back track – the score, by Terry Davies, moving from choral to wild clamour]. He's joined by Ralph and Piggy [Sam Plant] in a tender pas-de-trois.

The death of Simon – washed out to sea like Piggy in the book – is superbly done, and the Beast [ a zombie corpse ? a passing vagrant ? ] is genuinely terrifying, not least when he is brought to life by the tiny witness. Jack, the feral baddie set against Ralph's reasonableness, is a physically expressive Danny Reubens.

The Wells is just one stop on a national tour, recruiting 22 boys at each port of call. A dream opportunity for them, and for the audience an amazing realization of an iconic story.

SWAN LAKE

SWAN LAKE

Matthew Bourne's Adventures in Motion Pictures at Sadler's Wells

25.01.14

Back home at the Wells before another UK tour, this stunningly original Swan Lake continues to attract balletomanes and balletophobes alike,

Using Tchaikowsky's familiar score [though not necessarily in the right order], it tells the story of a Prince escaping from his dull existence and from his overbearing Mother (Michela Meazza) into the caring embrace of the Swan [Chris Trenfield]. It begins and ends in his regal bed – dreams and nightmares never far away. The famous troupe of male swans swooping and perching on the bed one of the most indelible images of a piece strong on imagery.

There's plenty of fun, too: the old-fashioned ballet – precisely the ossified style that Bourne rejects – the nightclub, the preening teenage Cygnets, and the Prince's unsuitable girlfriend [Kerry Biggin].

In a delightful life-imitating-art felicity, the Prince is now played, with effortless charm, by Liam Mower, the original Billy Elliott in the stage show, already a Bourne regular and still only 21.

With stunning designs - Lez Brotherston – and a superb and versatile ensemble, this wild and witty piece looked very much at home at Sadler's Wells; already a classic of the contemporary dance repertoire.

SLEEPING BEAUTY – A GOTHIC ROMANCE

SLEEPING BEAUTY 
– A GOTHIC ROMANCE

New Adventures at Sadler's Wells

23.01.13

Matthew Bourne's long-awaited completion of his Tchaikowsky trilogy comes to Sadler's Wells for a sell-out season, part of a tour which started down in Plymouth, and moves on via Milton Keynes to Moscow.

The specially recorded score sounds lush, but less obviously amplified than his Cinderella, and is trimmed to fit more neatly into Bourne's radical reworking of the story.

We begin in 1890 [Aurora's christening], the year the ballet premièred, and fast forward through 1911 [her coming of age] to 2011 [her awakening] and Last Night [her wedding].

Lez Brotherstone's design is gloriously Gothic for the opening, then opens out to an Edwardian Country House lawn – tea and tennis – and a slim forest lit by oil lamps, with a less impressive foray into a decadent nightclub.

The dancing is often inventive, occasionally heart-stoppingly beautiful in its execution.  The entry of the Fairies, complete with candles, uses travelators to give an ethereal effect; the famous Waltz, watched over by a towering statue of a weeping angel, fills the lawn with movement, and the Rose Adagio becomes a romantic pas de deux, with a tragic, toxic black rose lying in wait for the headstrong princess and her gamekeeper lover.

Story-telling and character are Bourne's stock-in-trade, and here we have a barefoot, capricious Aurora, first encountered as a wonderful puppet, recognisable to anyone who's met an energetic, wayward toddler. A Lilac fairy who is a virtuous vampire ensures that the princess's Leo lives long enough to waken her with the traditional kiss. The battle between good and evil extends right through the story, with Carabosse succeeded by her vengeful son, Caradoc. Good triumphs, of course, and the happy-ever-after ending reserves one last surprise blessing before the curtain calls ...