Review: Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes at The Lowry in Salford, Manchester*

We were invited to head to The Lowry Theatre in Salford, Manchester to review Sir Matthew Bourne’s award-winning production,  The Red Shoes.  The ballet is loosely based on the 1948 film of the same name. The film was also a ballet and brought fame to the dancers involved at the time. Initially a slow burner in popularity due to it having been badly promoted – it then became to be one of the highest-earning British films of all time, making a record-breaking gross of beyond $5Million – which must have been quite something at the time.  Before we start our review here is a bit of background on the creator of this fantastic production. Sir Matthew Bourne, who is the choreographer in charge of creating the adaptation. He has been active in his industry since 1985 and has won several Olivier’s and Tony Award, during his time as a choreographer. Born in London, he spent a lot of his youth waiting for the actors leaving their West End Shows. As a teenager, he also ran and director amateur dance companies, and then enrolled in Dance School where he gained his BA degree in Dance Theatre.  From his degree, he went onto work as a professional choreographer and then set up his current production company New Adventures.

The Red Shoes Ballet’s narrative is based upon the fairy tale, The Red Shoes, by Hans Christian Anderson, whose story was about a spoilt girl who is desperate for a pair of red shoes she gets her way and wears them as often as she can. One day she is stopped by a strange man who appears to put a spell upon the shoes. They have been told not to stop dancing. The shoes don’t stop and become vicious and terminal torture to the girl!

The ballet takes a slightly different stance – the shoes still become torturous, however, the story is about how Vickie is torn between her ambitions to become the best dancer in the world and the two men who inspire her passion to dance.

The performance was so unbelievably amazing!  It is hard to imagine that the performance can lead you through a tale, without any words being spoken. The movement flows through the performance and allows you to follow the story, and is so visually pleasing that I couldn’t help but smile as each scene moved into the next.

We were privy to a Q&A session at the end of the performance with Sir Matthew Bourne, this added to my evaluation of the show and clarified what I was thinking, about how it had been produced and in turn how I felt.  After hearing Bourne talk about different aspects of how he began to create the production, it was interesting to hear how he told us the origins of the music. The music was composed by Bernard Hermann and was actually extracted from various scores he had composed for several Alfred Hitchcock films. It had then been cleverly pieced together by Bourne’s long-time collaborator Terry Davies

In symmetry, I felt that some of the lighting and projections had also been inspired by Hitchcock films too. What was equally fascinating was the fact the music was a complete mix of several pieces of music that have been re-combined to make the music throughout the show.

Another thing that Bourne confirmed within his Q&A, was how he creates more than just a ballet in the classical sense. Rather, it is a modern dance production. The mix of dancing music set design and lighting were one complete unit. In so many other productions that I have seen, they are fragmented together and sometimes not truly cohesive – but still pleasing to see. However, The Red Shoes was so interlinked and each movement of the set, each spotlight shinning, each piece of fabric on the dancers’ costumes, each of dancers and all of the music married together, to make one soulfully visual masterpiece.

I can’t pick out a particular cast member that impressed me more than others, as I enjoyed so many different scenes throughout the performance and so many dancers each played such integral parts throughout, I just can’t choose. During certain scenes, you had to remember to look at each section of the stage, as slightly different scenes occurred within one moment on the stage. Such as a moment in the dance hall scene, where there were two comedic Egyptian dancers in one area, and two burlesque style, one with a ventriloquist dummy (yes you read right!) and several more, each individually performing there own little scenes, completely adding to the richness of the whole production.

One special thing to mention is the fact that Adam Cooper was on set last night, who apparently isn’t planning on being part of many performances. He has been part of many award-winning shows including, Singin’ in the Rain, Grand Hotel and On Your Toes, but lost recognisably for many is his role in Billy Elliot where he plays the adult in one of the final scenes of the titular role. Full list of cast members a below, including all the amazing creatives.

In addition, we also want to say a little thank you to Irregular Choice who helped to promote the show, and invited us to go and try on several pairs of beautiful red shoes prior to the event.

Here’s the youtube trailer to The Red Shoes