'We get so much support from Plymouth': Matthew Bourne brings The Red Shoes to Theatre Royal


Matthew Bourne's latest creation, The Red Shoes, premieres in Plymouth later this month. The choreographer took some time out of his busy schedule to reveal the challenges and delights of transforming the iconic film into a play.

Matthew Bourne has carved out a formidable reputation as the most successful choreographer in the world. Beloved tales from Edward Scissorhands to Sleeping Beauty have received the Bourne treatment; a dazzling re-telling stuffed with lavish costumes, dramatic dance, and rich set designs.

The Red Shoes is next in line for a stage adaptation courtesy of Matthew's imagination. In a land of sequels/ prequels and remakes, the 1948 film is so revered it has managed to remain completely untouched by filmmakers for 68 years.

"I do still get scared," says Matthew, with the world premiere of the production at Theatre Royal Plymouth just weeks away.

"You don't really know what you have until you get it in front of an audience – we're just trying to get it finished at the moment. There's one section we haven't even started yet. You just don't know, but we're really hoping it will be a success."

It's perhaps Matthew's biggest challenge. The Red Shoes tells the story of Victoria Page, a dancer who lives for her craft, but whose ambitions become a battleground between the two men who inspire her passion. The film is complex, switching from Vicky's on-stage performances to her backstage life. It's a story about dance and the magic of theatre.

"I've loved the thought of doing something with The Red Shoes for a long time," Matthew says.

"I actually found a list of ideas that I wrote more than 20 years ago which had Shoes on it so it's clearly been in my thoughts for a while.

"I'm not usually keen to do shows about dance companies – perhaps it feels like a bit of bus man's holiday but I kept being drawn back to it and the emotional relationships which are quite interesting.

"There's a lot to play with in it - it's set in this magical world of dance that we're in and you do give up a lot for it."

It's a world Plymouth is clearly interested in diving into. The show has sold out completely for its November 21 to 26 run.

"We get so much support from Plymouth and that's why it's always good to open there. It's a scary time for us so it's great because you feel there's a real audience there," Matthew says.

"We were worried before we started thinking we would have to do a bit of announcing to get people interested in the show. A lot of young people particularly won't know the film. There is an audience that has been educated and there will be some whom it will be completely new for.

"But, coming back to Theatre Royal, we're sold out so clearly there's popularity and we're excited to put it out there."

With such a grand reputation for transformative shows, does Matthew think his name does a lot of the work these days when it comes to selling tickets?

"We have gained that trust with people over the years and it's lovely to have that the company has that history of shows now and we want to please our audience.

"We do things differently and I think that's one of the reasons people come because they want to see what we're going to do. They come for the mystery and then they come back.

"I've worked with a lot of famous works that are very well-loved. Mary Poppins is probably the most well-known and you couldn't find a more well-loved film than that.

"You don't want to disappoint your audience but you want to tell them a story as well. They tend to have some expectation so you have to balance yourself between wanting to please and doing something different."

The challenge of transforming a film about a play, into a play about a play is something Matthew and his team have wrestled with since the beginning.

"The original film is very cinematic even though it's set around the stage," Matthew says.

"It's a piece of cinema. Some people may argue that putting a film about the stage back onto a stage is quite dull, but we're using theatrical language to make it exciting."

In addition to Matthew's choreography, Lez Brotherston has created the astounding sets for the production and the entire performance features the scores of legendary Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann.

At its heart, it's The Red Shoes' inherent theatricality that makes it such an enticing prospect for Matthew.

"Sometimes people get very interested in dance and ballet and they feel they want to make a movie about it and that's what happened with, most recently, Black Swan and actually The Red Shoes too. It was much more of a phenomenon then.

"Ballet was very new in the UK in 1948 and people would have known very little about it so it was exciting. Also, people love to see backstage and find out how they achieved what they achieved."

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