Matthew Bourne, the choreographer behind the all-male Swan Lake, tells Kerry Ann Eustice how his autograph-hunting past and the modern obsession with celebrity inspired his new piece, Dorian Gray.
If the calibre of Matthew Bourne’s previous dance works are anything to go by, Dorian Gray is likely to be the finest and most exciting performance you’ll see at The Churchill this year.
The repertoire of his company, New Adventures, takes in the three Tony Award-scooping Swan Lake (where the female swan ensemble was replaced with men), the fresh and fun revamp of The Nutcracker — one of the UK’s most successful dance productions ever — and the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp-endorsed Edward Scissorhands.
Dorian Gray is another fresh take on a classic with plenty of the Laban-trained choreographer’s signature humour and style.
“For me it just seemed like the most amazing parallel of what is going on today,” said Matthew of the Oscar Wilde novel’s appeal.
“I’ve set it in the present as the obsession with youth and wanting to retain it can’t have been any greater than what it is now. It’s interesting Wilde would catch on to that all that time ago.
“It’s very much a story we see in the papers all the time and we all love those stories. It’s the classic storytelling device, what can happen to someone when they achieve glory.”
As well as moving Dorian Gray into a modern time, and changing the sex of some key characters, Matthew has taken the story out of 19th-century high society into the glamourous yet ruthless fashion world. Doing this has allowed him to substitute the novel’s fading painted portrait for peeling billboards of a fashion fragrance campaign, which Dorian is the posterboy for.
Although keen to satirise these circles, it seems Matthew isn’t immune to this modern obsession with celebrity culture.
“I’ve always been interested in celebrity, what happens to people when they become celebrities and then when they get older and wiser,” he said.
“I see it as a world I understand. I was an autograph collector when I was a kid. I followed celebrities around all time. But it was a different world to what it is now.”
Any impressive signatures to boast of?
“Oh hundreds,” said Matthew. “All the big movie stars; Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin and many, many people since.”
Although he stopped hunting when he was 18, he now collects celeb well-wishes via a visitors’ book in his dressing room.
It’ll be interesting to see what the fashion pack and A-list write in response to this work.
“We did have Joan Rivers come,” said Matthew laughing. “I thought ‘well there’s an example of someone who’s trying to keep herself young, by any means she can find’. But she loved it. And she recognises something in it, I’m sure.”
One person who would approve is Wilde. Bourne’s Dorian Gray is full of wit and doesn’t skimp on the controversy the author was forced to tone down.
He said: “I hope he’s smiling down on us with this. I think he probably is.”
Dorian Gray opens at The Churchill, Bromley, June 4 to June 6. 0870 060 6620.
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