I’ve been too busy to blog about this all weekend, but I saw Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at Sadler’s Wells on Saturday, primalrily because I quite liked Dorian Gray and Edward Scissorhands and Swan Lake is the dance world’s version of a big fucking deal.
I didn’t know the story of Swan Lake, but I did know that Bourne’s version is famous for replacing a load of prissy little anorexic woman with this wild gang of thuggy swan homeboys. Those guys wouldn’t think twice about breaking your arm.
The thing I wasn’t expecting though, was how funny it was. In the first half there’s a drag queen dancing at a club called Swank’s and the unveiling of a naked guy like a statue and a mobile phone ringing at an inappropriate moment and and old lady who thinks the Prince dude is trying to nick her trolley. Fucking loved it. I know I’m coming late to the party and everything (Bourne first staged Swan Lake in 1995) but this is how the dance world are going to keep their audiences in the future. The man’s a genius.
