York Theatre Royal – 24 March 2017 and on tour around the UK. Reviewed by Marcus Richardson
The famed Sir Matthew Bourne with his tour across the UK was in York with a collection of his most earliest work from his company ‘New Adventures’, the show with its title ‘Early Adventures’ was a collection of dance pieces that were choreographed by him.
Bourne has won 5 Olivier’s and is regarded the most loved and known British Choreographer. The cast of 9 all danced through different episodes, and did so with perfection on their side.
The opening episode was labelled ‘Watch With Mother’ and captures the early starts of young life and kids at school, the dancing was absolutely stunning here and captured the naïve and innocent way of children, this was joyful to watch as it started the whole performance with such high energy.
The second episode was Called ‘Town and Country’, which had the interval between each section of the episode, this focused on the different lifestyle in the town and in the countryside, although the Town section was very good, Country stole the second episode with its hilarious take on milking cows. Country featured a lot of comedic sections with hand puppets being used on the side of the stage for an adorable dance along with the dancers, which then led to a funeral. I felt that the show couldn’t get any better or top country off, but I wouldn’t be more wrong.
Episode three ‘The Infernal Gallop’ just blew everything out of the water for me, based in France the story was hilarious. The two men who took part in my favourite dance of the night the ‘Pistiere’ witch absolutely amazing and the dancers created this funny and close bond on stage through dance, Tom Clark stood out here and gave a powerful and strong performance, without wearing a shirt you could see his muscles move and work to deliver the stunning yet hilarious point – with Bourne’s known tongue in cheek humour.
The whole night was perfect and I can’t describe in enough words hold much I loved it, the dancing was top key all the way throughout the show and all the dancers were perfect with dancing as individuals and in unison as a group which meant for stunning visuals on stage.
On a side note during the performance I ended up sitting next the Matthew Bourne himself to which I felt unworthy. If you have the chance to go and see this show, DO IT, it will make you laugh and it will be money well spent.