The Red Shoes
Rating: ★★★★
Venue: New Victoria Theatre, Woking

A timeless fairytale and Academy Award-winning movie, The Red Shoes has captivated audiences and inspired generations of dancers with its powerful tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a fierce struggle between the two men who inspire her passion. Matthew Bourne’s magical double Olivier Award-winning production of the legendary Powell and Pressburger film is set to a score orchestrated by Terry Davies, featuring the mesmerizing music of golden-age Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann, with sumptuous designs by Lez Brotherston (set and costumes), Paule Constable (lighting) and Paul Groothuis (sound). 

I have always wanted to see a production of The Red Shoes since I was very young and, as a huge fan of Matthew Bourne’s work having studied it previously, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The Red Shoes is a piece of contemporary dance theatre presented as a story within a story, based off of both the 1984 film and the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, with the narrative slightly simplified to make it read better in dance form.

The piece follows a young ballerina, Victoria (Cordelia Braithwaite), who is accepted at the prestigious Ballet Lermontov school in London. As her career progresses, she finds herself falling for the composer (Dominic North), much to the disappointment of Boris Lermontov (Andy Monaghan) who forces his dancers to choose between professional and personal success. When Irina (Katrina Lyndon) the company’s principal dancer suffers an injury, Victoria is cast as the prima ballerina in the company’s new ballet ‘The Red Shoes’.

Loosely based off the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, the ballet follows a young dancer who acquires a pair of red ballet shoes that made her the most incredible dancer, but they were cursed so that while wearing them she could never stop dancing and as she could not get them off, she danced until she died. Her boyfriend then took the shoes off her ghost so that she could get peace. The ballet is a resounding success, and Boris gives Julian and Victoria an ultimatum of breaking up or leaving the company. They choose to leave in order to be together and go to London to get married. While Julian opens his first opera in Covent Garden, Victoria’s career stalls and Boris taunts her with the red shoes to try and get her to come back. Haunted by having to choose between the two loves of her life, Victoria makes the only decision she feels she has left.

Matthew Bourne’s production of The Red Shoes is breathtakingly beautiful, and one of the most accessible ballets I’ve ever seen in its ease to follow the story despite the lack of dialogue. Lez Brotherston’s designs are truly a main character on their own, with beautiful, thoughtful costumes and an incredibly clever and flexible set that makes the show perfect for touring. Alongside Paule Constable’s stunning lighting design, the creative elements really do work in perfect tandem with the choreography to tell the story. My personal highlight was the piece of set created to make the train in the last scene. Despite it spending mere moments on stage, the incredibly designed piece of set has had the biggest lasting impact in my memory.

Iterations of Red Shoes now exist in written, film, and ballet form, and I’d love to see a play developed from this classic story next.

You can check out Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes on tour until 9th May. Tickets available here.

Review by Rachel

**photo credit: Johan Persson**