Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty

It is ten years since Matthew Bourne's New Adventures first wowed audiences at Norwich Theatre Royal with their unique reimagining of the ballet 'Sleeping Beauty'. They have returned to Norwich several times since, most recently to perform their dance re-boot of the 1948 film classic The Red Shoes, and they are back in Norwich this week with their new version of Charles Perrault's classic fairytale.
 
First performed by New Adventures in 2012, 'Sleeping Beauty' completed Matthew Bourne's choreographic tryptic of  Tchaikovsky ballet suites. After delighting us with an ensemble of male dancers for 'Swan Lake', and reimagining 'The Nutcracker' within an orphanage, it came as no surprise when 'Sleeping Beauty' was given a vampiric makeover. And now, in 2023, this revised version also comes with a couple of neat new touches.
 
Act 1 is set in 1890, the year when Tchaikovsky's ballet was first performed in St Petersberg. King Benedict (Danny Reubens) and Queen Eleanor (Stephanie Billers) finally have the baby that they have yearned for, thanks to help from the Dark Fairy, Carabosse (Paris Fitzpatrick). This time around, baby Aurora is a scene-stealing, adroitly animated puppet, realistically giving her parents and nannies the runaround, and even scaling the curtains in one slightly-scary Trainspotting-like moment.
 
Act 2 sees Aurora (Cordelia Braithwaite) sixteen years later in 1911, at a lavish coming-of-age garden party, where the melodramatic dance moves appear to be mimicing the style and feel of Chaplin and the golden age of silent movies, and yet they simultaneously reminded me of Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon', and Losey's 'The Go-Between'. Such is the cinematic scope and feel of Bourne's world that even the initial meeting between Aurora and Leo the gamekeeper (Stephan Murray) has a provocative playfulness that seemed to come straight from Ken Russell's 'Lady Chatterley', or even Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet'.

 
But it is the gothic magnificence of the vampire fairies and the moody malevolence of Carabosse, the Dark Fairy, that also borrows so much from contemporary culture - from television's 'True Blood', cinema's 'Twilight', and even 'Rocky Horror'. But Bourne's 'Sleeping Beauty' is a work that remains strikingly original. The already fluid movement of the dancers is given further dimension by the innovative use of  travelators. The lighting consistently captures exactly the right mood and level of atmosphere. The stage designs replicate the very essence of palatial splendour, of formal gardens and of slightly seedy nightclub with just the right balance of authenticity and surreality. However, there is no spinning wheel here. Instead, it is the perfume of a black rose that commits our heroine to her 100 year sleep. And sees Leo bitten by a vampire.
 
Aurora awakes after the interval, and it is 2011. Carabosse is no more, but his son Caradoc (also played by Paris Fitzpatrick) now has designs on Aurora. Reverting to present-day fashion and club culture, Act 3 becomes a frantic race between Caradoc and Leo to claim Aurora's hand. The ultimate  reveal is saved for the fleeting Act 4, set 'Yesterday', where Aurora is now married and with a baby of her own. Perfectly aligned, if this were cinema, for the sequel, or to commission a season two for television.