Matthew Bourne: Dance, ballet, opera classical music was nowhere to be seen. I got this audition at the Laban Center. You know, because I was 21, 22 by the time I started, so they may have thought I’d missed the boat a bit you know, as a dancer. But I don’t know what I don’t know what they saw, I wish there was a film of it I mean, I’d love to know what on earth I did in that audition.

Alistair Spalding: So welcome, Sir Matthew Bourne to this edition of Choreographer Conversations, where we delve a little bit deeper into your practice and also some of your history. And, I always want to start with where it all, where you started to get interested in dance when you just knew when that sort of thing existed in your youth. –

Matthew: Well that’s, yeah, so Well, I’m a Londoner. I’m a London boy, so certainly had access to a lot of performance anyway. And I was very lucky to be have parents who loved theatre and movies. So from a very early age, we lived in Walthamstow, E17, from a very early age they used to take me to see big movies, reissues of big famous musicals like West Side Story, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers I remember seeing things like that they used to be reissued around that time.

Alistair: At the cinema?

Matthew: At the cinema yeah, on the big screen, in the days when they really were big screens it was the single cinemas, you know, and occasionally to the theatre as well in the West End. But I would say usually to kind of variety kind of things at the Palladium London Palladium or West End musicals. They were probably my first sort of times that I saw dance and I loved it. I mean, I loved the dance, but it to me, it was part of a wider picture of a story and it’s an aspect of a musical. It’s not the whole thing. And I suppose that gave me the bug in a way. And very quickly, like from a very early age, about 14 onwards, I was getting on a bus into the West End to go on my own to see plays and musicals and films. So I surprised myself recently because I had been doing a little bit of research into my early theatre going and how just how young I was, and that I was allowed to go on my own on the bus and how I afforded it, I don’t know. I mean, I had pocket money, I guess, I don’t know, but actually you know, theatre tickets then in the Upper Circle gallery or whatever it was called, where I always sat were £0.50, £0.25.

Alistair: Was ballet a part of that?

Matthew: No, ballet was not something that my parents knew anything about. It was a very musical household. It was, we sang all the time. We had lots of music playing in the house. My mum and my dad and myself would sing top volume, you know, would sing along to things. We had one LP of classical music, which was The Planets, Holst’s the Planets, but otherwise it was all musical, musical theatre and musical movies. And so it was sort of, it was kind of part of my life, but dance, ballet, opera, classical music was nowhere to be seen.

Alistair: So when, when did you start to be interested in dance and, and therefore want to pursue it as a career?

Matthew: Well, look, I already loved dance, but it’s a different kind of dance. I was already I was already putting on shows. I was always choreographing numbers for shows from an early age. Yeah, I’ve always done it. I’ve always put on a show since four, four or five onwards. Various forms, church hall, youth club my parents were both youth workers, so I had access to a youth club to use space, you know, had access to space so I’d formed these little companies and put on shows. So it was sort of a part of my life. But I got to the age of 18 I left school at 18 and started work at the BBC was nothing glamorous I was filing contracts, but sort of close to that the world that I was sort of fascinated by, and I was sort of into self-education, I you know, sometimes would read a book by someone I’d never read before. It was like that sort of thing, you know, I’ve never read a book by Jane Austen I should read one. I’ve never seen an opera. I should go to one and see if I like it, and that was how I discovered ballet. I thought I should try one on my own. I thought, what’s a famous ballet? Swan Lake? I’ve heard of that one

Alistair: It was the first one.

Matthew: It was the first one.

Alistair: There’s a story there, isn’t there?

Matthew: There is and it was right here at Sadler’s Wells.

Alistair: In which company?

Matthew: Scottish Ballet, Peter Darrell’s production. It was right, I literally was at the back row of the upper circle. And I remember that very well, and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, if I remember rightly beforehand, and it all seemed like a sort of dream and the distance down there. But a wonderful one. You know, it was sort of glamorous and I love the fact that it was a piece of history sort of preserved and I loved the way the people moved. And also, I love the fact they weren’t speaking, you know, I thought I don’t have to wait for the numbers, which is what I’ve been doing with musicals for quite a few years, you know waiting for those numbers again, things like A Chorus Line, which I loved, you know, but which I’d seen several years before. But it sounds naive to say it now, but the idea of dancing from beginning to end and telling a story was a new concept to me at that point.

Alistair: Sure. So you ended up at Laban then as your first training?

Matthew: Yeah, I did. I worked for about four years in different jobs around the West End, and one of which was working at the National Theatre, and I worked in the bookshop there and also ushering and saw amazing productions for years. I mean, I saw the best theatre I think, at that time, but also all my fellow ushers were trainee actors, singers, dancers, and I met someone who was the same age as me by this point I’m 21 and he was 21 as well, but he was training at The Place, the London Contemporary Dance School, and I thought, why am I not doing that? I’m doing all these little shows, these amateur shows and things, and I love it so much and by this point I was a regular at Sadler’s Wells and at the Royal Opera House, seeing everything, Merce, Twyla Macmillan, Ashton were the top ones that I loved. And I saw all these things, you know, regularly, many times a week so I knew a lot about dance from a viewing point of view. And this guy, was actually named Dan O’Neill. He was one of The Featherstonehaughs

Alistair: Oh, yes, yeah.

Matthew: Yeah. And he said, well, why don’t you do it? Why don’t you go, give it a go? And I applied to audition for several places, and I got this audition at the Laban Center, now called Trinity Laban. And it was, it was the first class, first dance class I’d ever done.

Alistair: Wow.

Matthew: I’d never done one before that.

Alistair: So your audition was your first class?

Matthew: It sounds crazy to say now, but it’s true. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know any formal way of dancing just what I’d seen and what I copied. And what I’d learned from watching was what I’d done in these amateur things I’d done. They must have spotted something, though. I don’t know what they spotted, I think. I feel that they were very keen on having young men, for one thing. At the college. I think in my interview they asked me what I’d seen lately and of course the list never ended. It was I’d seen everything and I’d read everything. I’d read all the autobiographies and biographies of famous dancers and companies, and I was obsessive, you know, and I’d seen everything many times not just once. I’d seen things a lot. And so I was full of knowledge of dance, and I sort of think that they may have thought, oh, we’ve got a critic here or a writer. Someone’s going to write about dance or, you know, because I was 21 and 22 by the time I started, so they may have thought I’d missed the boat a bit, you know, as a dancer, but I don’t know what I don’t know what they saw. I wish there was a film of it. I mean, I’d love to know what on earth I did, in that audition

Alistair: So then you left Laban and you started a company straight away. Adventures in Motion Pictures at the time.

Matthew: Yes. What happened was my fourth year at Laban was it was basically a company called Transitions, and it was one of the first or second years that they’d run that and where they brought in choreographers from the outside to make work on a group of students that auditioned for that extra year and we became a little company. And, of course, some of the people that I worked with, they went on to into the dance world, like Emma Gladstone, you know, was one of my co-directors originally, of Adventures in Motion Pictures. But she was one of my colleagues in Transitions, and we formed the company out of that. It kind of gave us the knowledge of what it was like to be in a small contemporary dance company and tour around the country a bit, which we did quite a lot of touring and made some connections, you know, with people, including yourself, Alastair. On those tours we made some nice connections and got invited back eventually we did our own work as well. We did our own choreography and formed this company directly from leaving Laban, which was a sort of collective originally of people who wanted to choreograph and wanted to perform. There were about ten of us initially, and that whittled down a little bit eventually. But I was one of several choreographers.

Alistair: And did you get an arts council grant or something to… how did it work? Can you remember?

Matthew: No. No one would do what we did these days. No one would work for nothing these days. And they, why should they? But we did, did it for nothing for a while. We all had part time jobs. I was still working at the National Theatre right through my college years. I was still doing some evenings on the bookshop and continued that into starting the company. And we, you know, we couldn’t really pay ourselves very well at all. Nothing, I mean, we were on unemployment benefit or we were on a thing called the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, where we got 40 pounds a week, I think, because we’d started our own company. Which we were very grateful for at the time.

Alistair: Yeah, those are the things that existed then, of course and now it’s much harder.

Matthew: Much harder now, I imagine, which is why there’s not so many small companies around, I guess. You know, there was, it was quite a thriving thing in those days. And we’ve been buoyed on by the success of The Cholmondeleys, Lee Anderson’s company. She was, Lee was in the year above me at Laban and we’d seen what they’d done and going around pubs and little venues and creating this company and we loved their work, you know, it was very unique, very much her and her vision and it was I think we were encouraged by her more than anyone to start a company and think, well, we want to do that as well.

Alistair: Yes, yeah, yeah, interesting. So if we fast forward, we have now The Red Shoes in our theatre. And I just wanted to talk to you about one of the themes that occurs in your work and that’s the cinema and the clues

Matthew: Yes, very much so.

Alistair: In the name of your first company, Adventures in Motion Pictures. And so, it keeps coming up through your work so the Car Man, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cinderella, Brief Encounter, Romeo and Juliet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and so I guess this all came out of what you were saying earlier that one of your first experiences in life was going to the cinema and in eating up, particularly some of those older films that have been influential.

Matthew: Yeah, very much so. I mean, most shows have more than one, you know, film influence in them and sometimes they’re there and I don’t even recognize it myself because the images are in my head somewhere. And someone else says, oh, it’s a bit like that film. And I go, oh, yeah, of course. It, you know, it’s a great source of many things, you know, many images, many stories, many characters, and also with like, as I found with The Red Shoes, great music. You know, that film music is the most underused for other like for dance. I mean, there’s an incredible amount of wonderful film music which is only associated with the film. And most of our score for Red shoes is is from very famous films like Citizen Kane and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and films by Bernard Herrmann. So it’s always been an influence, sometimes more obvious than other times, like people always are sort of surprised and then go, oh yes, when I say The Birds is an influence on Swan Lake, you know, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, with those birds attacking for no apparent reason, this poor woman. But that’s been, you know, those films have been an influence for a long time and I don’t what I don’t like is a recreation of a film on stage. I think you’ve got to make it into a piece of theatre, a piece of dance, and it’s easy to say, oh, The Red shoes. It’s just based on the film of The Red shoes. But of course, it’s only about a third, if that, of dancing in The Red Shoes film. The rest of the story is is acted and spoken, and so by making a dance piece from it all those sections of the dramatic scenes between the main characters has to be danced as well. So it therefore creates quite a lot of nice duets and scenes between characters that don’t, that aren’t actually dancers in the piece like the composer and Boris Lermontov and people like, So I think this is true of all the pieces. Cinderella, has several influences, and you take something from that influence and feed it into the work, but you’re never really recreating it. And that’s the trick actually, is to use the inspiration, but don’t try and recreate it.

Alistair: Yeah and I guess that’s best exemplified in Car Man because it’s, it’s clearly that story of The Postman Always Rings Twice but actually probably people wouldn’t necessarily pick up on that if they went straight back and looked at the film and said, oh yes, this is…

Matthew: Yeah, it’s got its premise at the beginning like that film and that book by James M. Cain And but then, of course, we have our own twists and turns, which so no one can trust the fact that they know the source material in my pieces they can’t go, oh, we’ve seen the film or we know the story because it’s always changed and there’s always twists and there’s always other elements there’s a big one in the Car Man which of course is, wouldn’t have even been allowed when it was written.

Alistair: I know the bit you mean. So the other thing which you also just talked about is your love of dance history.

Matthew: Yes.

Alistair: And so when you went to interview at Laban, you know, you were able to reel off all of this information and that also comes through in The Red Shoes, of course, because this is really based on The Ballet Russes and Diaghilev and but also in the way you construct some of the dances within your performances.

Matthew: Little ballets within the whole piece.

Alistair: Yes, they’re always quite accurate.

Matthew: Yeah.

Alistair: In terms of time. And it shows that you are really fascinated by it, particularly that era.

Matthew: Yeah, I think so and I did sort of, I went through a period when I was thinking about doing The Red shoes where I thought, are we the company to do it? Are we, we’re not really a ballet company. We’re not a ballet company. We very rarely do anything on point. You know, it’s not something that I do and it’s about a ballet company. But actually, when I looked at historically, those companies experimented with all kinds of dance, and the great choreographers worked in different forms, experimented with bare feet sometimes different kinds of shoes, different kinds of, you know, it wasn’t always on point. And the dancers were a real mix of people, like New Adventures is, you know, a mix of different kinds of training. Any man, not that my men are not this, but any man who could breathe and swing a leg was in those companies in those days. I wouldn’t say that about my dancers, of course but, you know, there was a real mix of ability and dancers training there. So I thought, oh no, we are the right company to do it. We can do all those styles. But it’s funny, I was watching it the other night with Patricia Kelly, Gene Kelly’s wife, and at the end of it I had to say to her, I suddenly saw so much of him in it, in the Red shoes ballet. It’s like one of those ballets within a film that Gene used to do, and the style of it, even to the way the men are dressed a little bit. So there’s a bit of MGM in there as well, MGM Musicals as well as all the ballet history and then a bit of English Hall as well, the tacky sort of Music Hall that she ends up performing in. So it’s such a, the dancers have to be incredibly versatile with all these different styles, and we even actually attempt social dance of the 1940s in it with a bit of swing dance at the company parties, s o it is a bit of everything.

Alistair: Yeah, yeah. So the other thing that happens in The Red Shoes is that we see the creative process. So there’s a moment where everyone’s gathered around the composer, the designer, gathered around the set, you know and, and the choreographers trying to just, starting to make movement. And I thought, is that actually what happens, you know, I mean, it was a kind of pastiche of what you expect it to be and all this discussion going on. But I thought, it led me to think, well, actually, how does it work? Right, in your situation? And, so perhaps you could just talk about the process so, you know working with the designer and how those things start to emerge.

Matthew: Yes, well like we do, because it was a piece about creating work, creating ballet and creating something new. I wanted to have that as part of the show, and that’s one of the hardest scenes actually to make was that scene with all the creative team altogether, all feeding into the ideas of course, it doesn’t really happen like that, but I’m glad we do it in the show to show there’s that side of putting on a show.

Alistair: Do you think it happened like that then, though?

Matthew: I don’t know. You know, I wonder, I would love to think they all sat in a room…

Alistair: That’s what I think.

Matthew: Came up with ideas. All those famous artists and composers and people, you know, I certainly do it in stages. You know, how I would work. I initially start with myself with an idea, often what I would call the big idea. What is it about that piece that, it’s putting together something quite famous, but with a take on it, you know, what does that take going to be? Is it an era thing or is it a change of sex, or is it a, you know, whatever it might be and try and think through a story, write write a story down, the beginnings of a story anyway and then the next person I would talk to would be usually Lez Brotherston, our regular designer. If it’s a new score I’ve often worked with Terry Davis, who would, that would be an important person to start talking about it from the beginning. But if it’s an existing score, it would just be Lez, you know, and start to and then give him the chance to respond to it, not tell him what I want, not say this, I want this, this and this. I want this scene. I want… let him then bring his magic to it and go like, what about this? And I, of course, the genius of his design for The Red Shoes is the spinning, turning, ever turning pros arch which is an incredible piece…

Alistair: Yeah, yeah, brilliant. It’s part of the story telling.

Matthew: To play with it. It’s almost like a dancer sometimes, you know. And I wouldn’t have come up with that idea. And I knew it was backstage front of house, you know, we knew there was a concept that we were trying to get across, but that’s his job and that’s what he does. And then, you know, you work with other people on different aspects. I’m a firm believer on letting people do what they do really well. Let them have the chance to do it and offer that and true, I eventually have the final say to say yes or no on something but I think I don’t have all the answers. My team feeds in enormously and so do the dancers as well you know, eventually they’ll be feeding in ideas as well and helping to create movement. So it’s incredibly collaborative.

Alistair: Where do you start? I mean, you have to make a like a choreography, but you also have to continue to tell a story. Right? –

Matthew: Yes.

Alistair: And so I just wondered how you actually make movement and what happens in the studio. Are you showing? Are you, some people are asked to suggest things to dancers What’s your sort of process?

Matthew: Well, it’s evolved over a long period of time. And it started out, as most people think is what happens is you work it out in front of a mirror yourself, and then you teach it to people. And it certainly started out that way from even before I went to college, you know, I was doing that kind of thing. And I thought that was my job, you know, it was to make up the movement on my own body and teach it to people. And so most of my early shows, some of which we still do the very early stuff, I did a lot of it on my own body and created the movement. Then I get a bit older, you know, of course, and you can’t do so much. Then I start to work with really brilliant dancers that are better than me, much better than me. And I’m not going to rely solely on what I can do. But by this point, I’m not dancing in the pieces as well, which is usually what was happening in the early work. I’m stepping back and I can watch so I can start to shape movement with the people I’m working with, and the job becomes more about giving them the knowledge of what I want, in terms of the story and where the scene is going to go. We look at it as a scene rather than a dance. You know, this scene has got to tell us this and then set tasks, very basic tasks, sometimes around the idea of what we want to get across in the scene. I like to set tasks that are clear for the dancers to understand. Oh yes, we can do that rather than worrying about what they’re doing. Very straightforward things. I mean, I can give you one example In The Red shoes, actually, with the duet we called Cheap Digs, which is where Vicky Page and her partner Julian Craster, the composer, are together in a cheap bedsit well it looks quite posh actually in the show, but it’s supposed to be Cheap Digs and they’re both missing what it is they do which is dancing great work and him composing for a great company. So we set this task which was all about hands and feet. So there’s one section of it which is all about his hands, her, her pulling his hands away from composing or the piano or whatever really simple physical idea to play with. How can we, how many ways can you do that? And then the second part is about him stopping her from dancing. Or she thinks he’s had stopped her from having the opportunity to dance. So it’s about him grabbing her feet and stopping her from dancing. It’s so simple. It’s a simple idea, but it’s something that everyone can play with that idea. And then out of that grows some interesting movement and some ideas that then feel right for what we’re trying to say. And then you start to elaborate on that and work through the music and make it work for the music. So it’s sort of there’s various ways of doing it. But it’s, it’s about task setting and working together and discussing and yeah, finding it together now.

Alistair: So, it sounds like the music comes in a little bit later. Once you’ve started.

Matthew: It does a bit. Yeah. I don’t think it’s absolutely, but I think I’m quite good at putting things to music. I mean, I do pride myself on I don’t ever do anything that just goes across lots of music. I know the music inside out. It’s the script for me. It’s the script of what I’m doing and everything is set and counted and exactly set to the music. There’s no sort of leeway there. It’s musical. It has to be.

Alistair: So as I say, you have this choreography going on but always and I noticed it even more just watching Red Shoes again there’s something happening which is moving the story forward. And so I don’t know when that comes in. Once you’ve so you have a kind of script in your head in terms of moving that narrative.

Matthew: Yeah.

Alistair: And that, that sort of keeps going all through every scene.

Matthew: I’m very organized in the structure of an evening. You know, that’s I think one of the things that makes people talk about storytelling when they see our work, a New Adventures’ work, because it’s very much worked out. And it’s also in a way, I hate to use the word manipulative, but sometimes I put in something just to lighten the story for a while, then go a bit darker so people feel the difference. I know that the evening has to be made up from solos, duets, trios, group dances. I need to use the ensemble really well and make sure they’re busy all the time. I don’t like people sitting in dressing rooms. It’s a little calculated in a way. You know the structure of it. And I think very much about the arc of an evening and the arc of a first half, and that you must finish on a big, big up question mark, “what’s going to happen next?” feeling so people want to come back after the interval.

Alistair: This is all experience from you watching musicals, isn’t it?

Matthew: It is and it’s storytelling and it’s all those things. You know and it’s about momentum. And I should mention that I, you know, I’ve had the great experience of working in musical theatre with some really great directors who I learned a lot from, like Trevor Nunn and Richard Eyre and Sam Mendes. And, you know, I’ve had a great experience working with those quite senior directors, you know, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about rhythm. It’s all about the rhythm of an evening. And not letting the ball drop, you know, and keeping the audience with you. And so all that’s theatrical know how, is part of what we do at New Adventures I think.

Alistair: Yeah. So just moving on to the next kind of theme, which is an obvious one with you, is taking some of the texts of ballet. So, The Nutcrackers and the Swan Lakes, etc.. The first one actually was Nutcracker, wasn’t it?

Matthew: Yeah.

Alistair: It was a commission from Opera North. It was half of an evening.

Matthew: Yes. Well, I’d never have decided to do Nutcracker myself. I mean, there was only six of us in the company at the time, and I was one of the dancers, you know, so we’d never thought we were going to do Nutcracker. So we needed the commission to have the opportunity, and we were able to expand numbers to do it and have a full orchestra, Opera North’s orchestra. It’s interesting that what kicked all this off really was that commission to be different, because they didn’t want a classical version. They thought if we were going to commission as an opera company, a dance company, to do Nutcracker so they could recreate this program in which it was originally premiered with with this opera called Yolande by Tchaikovsky, and they were originally done as a double bill. They wanted, it was the centenary and they wanted to recreate this thing, and they came to me. They’d seen some of our fairly quirky work, I suppose funny had humour in it, which was unusual at the time in dance, and the brief was to do something different with The Nutcracker. Do your own version. Don’t you know we’ve there are plenty out there. You do something different. So that was a lovely commission. You know, to get and to be encouraged to do something different.

Alistair: Can you remember who it was who came and commissioned you? The person.

Matthew: Yeah, it was Nicholas Payne.

Alistair: Wow, yes.

Matthew: Nicholas Payne has been associated here at Sadler’s Wells…

Alistair: Yeah, yes.

Matthew: Sometimes as well. Yeah, it was the commissioner. And Martin Duncan I worked with as director on the double bill, and he directed the opera and co-directed the original Nutcracker that we did.

Alistair: It’s interesting, these moments really are so important, aren’t they?

Matthew: Yes.

Alistair: Because if you hadn’t had that chance, you wouldn’t maybe have had the ambition to go and do Swan Lake.

Matthew: Definitely not. Yeah. No, it was only the sort of modest success of Nutcracker at the Edinburgh Festival, which is where it was premiered, and a bit of encouragement on that and The Arts Council gave us the possibility of doing another one. And it was a project, you know, Swan Lake was the one I chose, and it was a project to get bigger again for a period of time and a bit of touring and to play here at Sadler’s Wells. And then it would go, we’d go back to being the small company again. It was definitely a limited period of time. We had to and a lot of money. I mean, the trust was incredible and I think back now. It must have been I mean, the sets were quite.. Yeah, also we had that, a full orchestra with a great Tchaikovsky conductor, David Lloyd Jones. And we had you know, it was there was a lot of faith put in me, which I so appreciate now when I think back. But it was supposed to be for a short time.

Alistair: Yeah, and look at it now. A few months. So obviously what links a lot of these ballets is Tchaikovsky. And I do wonder sometimes if these ballets would still exist and have their strength. If it wasn’t for the music.

Matthew: They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t. Alastair, I promise you that it’s the music because the choreography changes in them quite a lot. All these productions that you mention of Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake and Nutcracker, they’re all a bit different. There’s some bits that remain similar. It’s the music which makes the public love the pieces. And, you know, I think it’s that’s, Tchaikovsky is the king of ballet, really.

Alistair: Yeah, of course. And I guess in there, there is always a scenario when you change it a little bit. But yes, ultimately there is a path that he laid out.

Matthew: Well, the fascination was with The Nutcracker and then Swan Lake, and then Sleeping Beauty is that they were written to order with the choreographers Petipa and Ivanov and but they requested what they wanted and gave some sort of a guidelines as to what that section of the show was about. I should call it ballet, and I always called my shows shows, but but they, it was music written to tell a story. And that’s what was fascinating. And that’s what was so good and why I feel confident when I go have that kind of a score, that I can find a different story in it, because of the dramatic music and also extremely melodic and, you know, easy to choreograph to. It’s just a joy to choreograph to.

Alistair: And just tell us about the Swan Lake, the first,

Matthew: Must we?

Alistair: You did it here first and then you went into the West End, didn’t you?

Matthew: Yeah. It’s an interesting story, really, because it’s, It is a moment in time that which seemed incredible, which was incredible, but also quite difficult. And we had an incredible, unexpected success with the show. It became sort of headline news rather than just arts news and the image of the swan. We had underestimated what that meant in the arts, where the different kind of swan was a sort of major thing, and then we had all these opportunities given to us to do a West End run, and that was the first incredible thing that happened. But also it was very hard work. We didn’t have enough covers, we didn’t have enough people in the company. It was a struggle every day to get the show on. No dancer at that time was used to doing eight shows a week.

Alistair: That’s right.

Matthew: Nobody I mean, it was there were all contemporary, mainly contemporary dancers rather than ballet dancers as well. And ballet dancers do even less. And still do, you know. So it wasn’t until through the doing of it that we learned how to do seven or eight shows a week, which we do all the time now, and look after people and have rotating casts and physios on tap. And, you know, we really look after people and make sure that they’re okay. And that’s how we managed to do all these shows. But then we didn’t have that knowledge. So it had its ups and downs for a while.

Alistair: But it was really trailblazing then, wasn’t it? Not just in terms of what it was as a because it’s always a classic, obviously, but also that that you were going into this new world of dance in the West End. Eight shows a week, as you say, it’s all…

Matthew: Yeah.

Alistair: No one else had done it and you were finding out as you went along.

Matthew: Yeah, it was new territory, you know, for all of us. And of course, when that happens, you don’t always get it right. And I don’t want to downplay I don’t want to make it sound grim and everything it was, it’s always been an amazing thing, the fact that we did that and then got invited to Los Angeles and then eventually to Broadway and all these things, you know, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. And we were always lifted up by the audience every night. The show has never not got the reception it gets, even when I sit through what I think is not a great performance. It’s always the same at the end and it’s uplifting, and that helps us work out how to do it in a way.

Alistair: Yeah. Can I just turn to the dancers for a minute and and ask you what, when you’re, when you’re auditioning or, you know, you have people obviously who have been with you for a while, but when you’re looking for new dancers, what is it you’re looking for in a, because you must have many people coming.

Matthew: We do now. I mean, we struggled to find 14 swans originally when we first did Swan Lake, but we do have a lot of applications now, but also because the work is more well known, it’s nurtured a generation of dancers who want to be in this company they think it’s them. They see themselves in it, in the shows, you know. So we get people who are already informed about what kind of work this is, and they tend to be people who love performing and love telling a story to an audience. And so it’s a little easier in some ways now because you haven’t got to explain what it is you want from people, but they’re not trained actors, mostly. So you have to find that within people. You have to find a generosity of spirit when they’re performing that they want to give to an audience. That they want to express something to an audience. And that’s very important to me and to the shows. The other thing is, if you’re telling stories and usually a sense of community or a town or a place or something, you can’t have everyone looking the same. People have to look different. There has to be a sense of a community, a range of all, everything, shapes, sizes, you know, background, diversity of all kinds, ages. You have to have an older dancer to play the parents of someone and you know, so it’s not the same as casting or as, auditioning for an ordinary dance company. It’s about all those elements that make it look like a world in which the piece is created. You know, that you want the audience to see. So that’s quite unusual in a way, for dance. It’s about finding all those characters. And there’s an element of eccentricity about the people in my company. There’s quite a lot of, quite eccentric people which I love and encourage that. That’s how you get interesting performances, you know, from people and I love that and they’re all very, very different. So there’s no one thing you’re looking for, really.

Alistair: Yes and of course, now you have dancers who have been with you for a while and they move into these older characters.

Matthew: Yes.

Alistair: And, which you need in the production. But it’s a lovely thing, isn’t it, as well as people you know, I think that people move out of dance too quickly. But some of your dancers have been with you for a long time, you know, and they really feel that, you know, they look their age, but they’re dancing beautifully.

Matthew: Yes, to have that opportunity to play a role which is right for you. I mean, I think some dancers of the past probably had to go on playing Juliet until they were in their 40s. And it still happens, of course. And, you know, but it’s nice to have roles that feel age appropriate. And I find it a mixture in a company of mature dancers with experience and college leavers and first job making their debut professional debuts. Wonderful mix because they all learn from each other, and you’ve got the work ethic of the dancers who’ve been there for a while, which everyone sees and is inspired by and also the energy that the young people bring and that keep everyone on their toes a little bit as well. It’s lovely, it’s a lovely mix.

Alistair: And I have to ask you about how you know, because obviously we’ve been through Covid and everything, but how are the dancers different in the in, you know, how you work with them? I mean younger generation have definitely changed anyway. So that must come into the to the studio.

Matthew: Well, I feel so much for those dancers that, where training was affected by Covid. But this group of young people that were taken into Red Shoes, this time, the first group, that’s where they’ve not been affected by Covid in their training. And they are very different and they’re really open. They’re really happy to work with each other and they look you in the eye. You can have fun with them. It’s extraordinary to see the difference. The last few years have been more of a struggle to get people engaged, to get people to be happy, to work with each other because they’ve not had that experience so much. And there’s a reticence there, you know, and I think and I only feel sad about that, you know, and hopefully people can get out beyond that through professional work. But it’s hopefully that will never happen again.

Alistair: Yeah, sure. So talking about the future and you know what’s next Matthew. You know we’re waiting.

Matthew: I know, I know I’m boringly content with what I’ve done. I think that’s probably it feels good to me, but it’s probably a bit boring for other people to hear that, you know, because the amazing thing about having a company is that I’ve been able to do the work I wanted to do, and some of the things that have been on a wish list, I guess I’ve ticked off, you know, and done those pieces so I haven’t got this sort of burning ambition to do a particular piece. I’ve never been able to manage to pull off. So there’s, there’s that. And I do get a lot of pleasure from the revivals, you know, and making the work better. And by the time they come back after five, six, seven years, sometimes I’m all excited about them again, you know, as I was in the first place. But, you know, this year I’ve had a busy year doing things outside of the company. We’re doing Oliver in the West End, and that was in Chichester as well. And the Sondheim show, Old Friends, were taking up quite a lot of my time in the last couple of years and haven’t had much spare time. So what I’m doing at the moment is just sort of gently looking for an idea, and hopefully it might come.

Alistair: How enticing.

Matthew: So we’ll see, you know? And if anyone’s got any great ideas, that would be gratefully received.

Alistair: There’s usually plenty of them that come in.

Matthew: But I don’t, Alistair, I don’t think it will be a big piece. It will be more of an intimate piece along the lines of Midnight Bell or working with people I really love working with closely, and I think at my age now, I feel that’s the kind of work that I will enjoy doing and working closely with people.

Alistair: Yeah, I understand that, but I was thinking about The Red Shoes again, you know, and I remember coming down to Plymouth to see the opening and there’s something very special, isn’t there, about a new show that’s sort of excitement, that struggle actually to get there. And I mean, that’s quite, you know, that must be something you want to relive.

Matthew: I think when I’m ready for it, it will happen naturally and I’ll but it’ll be more like, I think there’s a great idea.

Alistair: Yeah.

Matthew: It has to be, it has to It’s not just because I feel I should do a new piece. It will be because there’s a great idea and I think, that’s I really think I could do something with that that’s going to be great. I have to feel that otherwise it may never happen. But when it happens, it starts with a great idea.

Alistair: Okay well, in the meantime, we’ll enjoy all of the existing work. And so thank you very much for doing this conversation.

Matthew: It’s a pleasure, thank you Alistair.