MAN SWANS: Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake reviewed

Contrary to dance pleb belief, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is not a ballet. First staged in Sadler’s Wells in 1995, this controversial contemporary dance has returned to its original stage as the longest running dance show in the West End.

It’s been 14 years since Matthew Bourne said goodbye to tutus, pointe shoes and ballet convention to choreograph a version of Swan Lake with male swans. However, the homoerotic undertones of the revised plot rattled the feathers of some early audience members. Some critics complained about its departure from traditional ballet while one girl from the local ballet school cried because it was distinctly lacking in the big white tutu department.

Over the years the male dancers have become iconic so their virile masculine physicality and their famous frayed trousers designed by Lez Brotherston which appeared at the end of Billy Elliot the movie are to be expected. However, what catches you off-guard is the intensity of the encounter between the Prince and the swans. The whole thing is delivered with such emotion. And not the faux opera house emotion of the heavily made-up Royal prima ballerinas either.

From the tormented Prince to his hilarious girlfriend, who, in a clever piece of satire eats Maltesers in a theatre, are surprisingly real. It has a kind of immediacy that makes it utterly unique in the world of dance. In fact, its key critique of traditional dance performances is that they lack any kind of relation to the lives of the audience, most sharply carried out in the theatre scene. A ridiculous parody of pretentious ballets it involves all of the animal kingdom dancing with exaggerated emotion and a devil who has some absurd piece of artwork dangling distractingly from his crotch- sound familiar?

The novelty of this production and the controversy surrounding it might have attracted dance-lovers in the nineties but controversy isn’t what keeps the audiences coming. In its fifteenth year it's just as funny, just as sad and just as relevant as it used to be. They certainly don’t call it a contemporary dance for nothing.

Vicarious says go see this or we're not your friend anymore.MK