Review: Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Liverpool Empire *****

The inspiration for a radical reimagining of Swan Lake apparently came to Matthew Bourne while he watched more traditionally staged versions of the Tchaikovsky ballet favourite.

Over the past three decades this Swan Lake has become as much part of our cultural landscape as its classical cousin. And if, as a result, it perhaps doesn’t feel quite as audacious as it must have seemed back in 1995, it remains an outstanding - and riveting - piece of theatre.

All Bourne’s chief calling cards are on show in this early outing for New Adventures – wit, charm, intelligence, vivid storytelling and a sucker punch of raw emotion.

Yet while his name appears above the title, as it were, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is as much Lez Brotherston’s vision too. The Liverpool-born designer’s striking and atmospheric staging and sublimely-rendered costumes, from the Queen’s 50s Dior-inspired wardrobe to the swans’ feathery knickerbockers, are a visual triumph and linger long in the memory.

In this reinterpretation of the folktale infused original, a lonely and repressed Prince seeks the affection lacking at home in the palace, falling first into the arms of a hilariously unsuitable girlfriend – played with delightful, impish glee and knowing gaucheness by Bryony Wood on opening night at the Empire – and then transfixed by a mysterious but mesmerising waterfowl-made-man. That’s some therapy session waiting to happen.

Above: Nicole Kabera as the Queen and Stephen Murray as the Prince. Top: The all-male swans of Swan Lake. Photos by Johan Persson.

Stephen Murray brings an innocence and tangible air of desperation to his performance as the Prince, who metaphorically beats his wings against the bars of his gilded cage – a world of fawning factotums and a relentless round of waving, plaque unveiling, ship launching and medal-pinning, all undertaken beside his mother who denies him the affection he craves.

The dysfunctional family dynamic is nicely played out with Nicole Kabera’s brittle monarch who shrinks from showing her son any love but elsewhere burns with barely-repressed passionate energy. There are shades of Hamlet and Gertrude, particularly in their ambiguous physical altercation.

Enter Jackson Fisch who delivers a mesmerising performance as the cob who catches the prince’s attention on a night-time visit to the eponymous lake and engages him in a part-savage, part-tender, mildly homoerotic pas de deux to fuel the royal dreams/nightmares.

Above: Jackson Fisch as the Swan and Stephen Murray as the Prince in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. Photo by Johan Persson.

Fisch, sporting a buzz cut, is a muscular yet lithe presence as the Swan. It's not just Murray's royal who can't tear their eyes from him when he's on stage.

In addition, he brings lashings of ruthless swagger to his dual role of the predatory dark stranger who crashes a royal ball and cuts a swathe through its female guests before the prince’s jealous gaze.

There’s a palpable sense of power and menace too among the 14-strong, all-male corps de ballet who are about as far away from the delicate, tutu-clad swans of Petipa and Ivanov’s imagining as it’s possible to be.

They flap, peck, stamp and hiss as they carve a brutal but very beautiful series of shifting tableaux, first on a moonlit night at the lake and later in a feral, frenzied finale in the palace.

Swan Lake was Bourne’s first production to play the Empire, 15 years ago now, with this current anniversary run its fourth outing at the theatre amid what has become a welcome annual visit by the New Adventures company.

And if productions like Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and the Red Shoes never less than enchant (while Edward Scissorhands is a personal favourite of this reviewer), his Swan Lake always feels like a particularly special occasion - as well as perhaps remaining the ultimate Bourne legacy.