A stunning reimagining of the classic film
Inspired by the groundbreaking 1948 film, Matthew Bourne and his New Adventures ballet company have revisited and refined their 2016 production of The Red Shoes into something really special. This dark tale of love and obsession is a breathtaking one, as it takes in a world tour of a post-war ballet company told in Bourne’s sumptuous theatrical style, giving us a stunning period glimpse of its inner workings, people and passions.
Based on the grim Hans Christian Anderson cautionary fairy tale on the evils of vanity, The Red Shoes is all about love, passion, hard work and obsession. Of art imitating life and life imitating art.
Victoria Page (played with true to film flaming hair by Cordelia Braithwaite) is an aspiring ballerina who dreams of a life on stage with the Lermontov ballet company.
Hardworking, talented and beautiful she immediately catches the eye of the company impresario Boris Lemontov (Andy Monaghan) while her eyes are looking firmly towards company composer Julian Craster (Dominic North). A romance fuelled both by attraction and their shared passion for their art and the sheer joy it brings them, whereas Boris sees love as an increasing distraction from the only thing that truly matters - the dance!
Despite this tension, Victoria’s career blossoms and she is cast as The Red Shoes lead, the company’s new triumphant ballet set to Julians music. A tale of passion and driven obsession where the ballerina, enthralled by the enchanted red ribboned shoes, eventually dances herself to death.
The success and demanding schedule of the ballet puts pressure on all involved, but no more so than Victoria, who is torn between the duty she feels to the company and her love for Julian. Eventually Boris will no longer tolerate any further distractions from his great work and gives her a choice – Julian or The Red Shoes.
She chooses Julian and they leave Lermontov Ballet to return to London, where they scrape by in Bourne’s deliciously downbeat music halls. Rubbing disgusted shoulders with comedy moustachioed Egyptian dancing men, despondent hard smoking chorus girls and salacious ventriloquist acts. Their work no longer fulfils, their passion begins to die and Victoria longs for her former life and obsession in The Red Shoes, where tragedy surely waits.
A tale of love and obsession, simple enough. However, you will never see anything simple coming from Matthew Bourne. He and his creative team have poured a huge amount of love into honouring the classic 1948 film with every conceivable detail and nuance.
Our gaze effortlessly turns from opulent front of house to backstage and beyond, thanks to Lez Brotherson's cunning revolving stage curtain, that can rotate and track it’s drapes and side lights anywhere on the stage. Drawing our view like one perfectly panned film take as it whirls through stage scene angles, hotels and bedrooms.
All of which is sumptuously lit by Paul Constable’s nuanced high end lighting, balancing subtle scene lighting worthy of the best 40s films, with added projection and bold Hitchcock style spotlighting, to pick out intense moments and solos. Each key film scene lovingly reimagined.
Through all this visual opulence surge and flow the outstanding dancers, with emotive and innovative precision. Bold and delivered at pace, the dancers are endlessly impressive both physically and in their attention to subtle character play, garbed in their gorgeous 30s 40s costumes.
Life is breathed into every detail. The cast frolicking athletically in one glorious beach wear scene as the tour takes in Monte Carlo, paying cheeky dreamlike homage to just about every 30s & 40s holiday poster you could imagine. Just one of many gloriously rich and often witty scenes, in a show jam packed with visual detail.
The most famous aspect of the film and Bourne’s production is the ballet within a ballet. Which delivers about 15 minutes of skilfully choreographed manoeuvres perfectly synchronised with the rich costumes, sets and lighting to leave you in absolute awe, as the Lemontov company dance the Hans Christian Anderson tale.
The music is drawn from across the original film composer Bernard Herrmann’s radio and film works, not just the original film score. Herrmann had worked closely with Orson Wells at CBS and RKO prior to The Red Shoes including on Citizen Kane and would later go on to score Psycho and Vertigo of which there are subtle nods here. Drawing from across his works has allowed Terry Davies to orchestrate a much broader emotional palette than the original film, his reimagined score swells with emotion and complements the overall effect superbly.
This is a stunning show, immersive and compelling. The standing ovation at the end was a worthy one, rare for ballet. I never cease to be impressed by Matthew Bourne shows but he has one again raised the theatrical ballet bar. Go and see it.
Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures - The Red Shoes plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal until Saturday 7 February 2026.
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