Review: The Car Man – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Matthew Bourne rarely fails to please and can reprise his works without risking failure, boredom or empty seats in theatres across the land.

I saw his ‘The Car Man’ in Newcastle’s beautiful Theatre Royal in 2015 and, like the opera Carmen, on which it is loosely based, the production has aged beautifully. There’s also a nod to ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ and yes, it’s just as steamy. 2015 was already a ‘revival’ of the original 2000 production and the first replay in 2007 and between 2015 and now it had been produced once more in 2022. Some of us just can’t get enough of Bourne’s ‘New Adventures’.

So what’s the attraction? You kind of know what to expect and yet you are constantly surprised and delighted. So here’s the recipe: find a well-known tale, find an interesting new spin and then get your dancers to give it their all. Having Les Brotherston all the while as your Designer is the must-have gilding on the lily. He designs the sets and the costumes and they are always stunning. There’s also usually a nice bit of humour in there. Bourne takes his work very seriously but that doesn’t preclude allowing the audience to have a good time too. Some of it feels a little formulaic, once you’ve seen a few of his ballets, but actually that’s ballet for you: the principals get their chance to shine, often in stunning pas des deux, and then there’s plenty of space for many of the other dancers to have their moment in the sun too. So no complaints from me on that score.

Some of us just can’t get enough of Bourne’s ‘New Adventures’.

So ‘The Car Man’ – what’s that all about? The Spanish cigarette factory of Bizet’s Carmen is transposed into an American garage/diner but the heat and passion of the original is kept in Bourne’s version. The story is of a stranger coming into town and disrupting the quotidian goings-on of this sleepy town. It brings out the worst in all of them and spells mayhem and disaster. You’ll recognise tunes from Bizet’s opera – even if you don’t think you know any – but The Car Man’s score, by Terry Davies, is actually adapted more from Rodion Shchedrin’s ‘Carmen Suite’, which itself was based on Bizet’s work.

Brotherston’s set is really clever. A nod to ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing’ opens the show, telling us this is set in a small town with a very small population. The billboard disappears and then we are in the garage with actual cars – or at least parts of them – on stage and the action begins. The men are working In the garage on the cars and the girls are in and around the diner. The costumes are all very 1950s with checks and ginghams and swirly skirts, as well as denims and James Dean t-shirts. And you can feel the heat both actual and metaphorical. A sign says ‘Man Wanted’ and that too can be read in more than one way: clever. And our ‘drifter’ – Luca – fits the bill to a ’t’: the girls definitely want him, but then so do some of the boys and the garage owner Dino too, of course, though in his case for work. His wife Lana also desires the newcomer.

A Bourne ballet wouldn’t be complete without a dance hall /cabaret scene of some sort, and ‘The Car Man’ doesn’t disappoint. The billboard gives way to vivid neon lighting and the dance continues.

The story is told loud and clear and the ensemble dances and set pieces move the piece along swiftly and energetically. The duets are passionate and erotic and there are few quiet scenes. Even the heat-induced lethargy is charged. Emotions run high and passion and lust fuel deceit. The themes are explicit and the 15+ age advice is justified. There is a very brief moment of full frontal nudity. These men are frustrated in all sorts of ways and fisty-cuffs not surprisingly ensue, but with dire consequences.

A sign says ‘Man Wanted’ and that too can be read in more than one way: clever.

Brotherston transports us to a penitentiary and both his staging and the accompanying choreography are unsettling and graphically menacing: the story has taken a dark turn. Whilst gentle Angelo is wrongly imprisoned for the murder he did not commit, Luca and Lana try to forget what they have done, wantonly spending the dead Dino’s money, but their crimes hang heavy, giving them no enjoyment.

There is a final face-off between Angelo and Luca, but no spoiler here.

This is a fast-paced, sexy story which Bourne tells unashamedly. Of course it’s a moral tale too: we reap what we sow: but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy things along the way, whatever the ultimate price.

Will Bozier is brooding and sulky as Luca and Cordelia Braithwaite is a sultry and seductive Lana: they make the perfect pair. Alan Vincent as Dino is the embodiment of male egotism, toxic masculinity and a demanding yet demeaning husband. Having starred as Luca in the original production, Vincent must be the most fitting person to take on this role.

Bourne’s ballets are always more than just ballet, they are theatre too and The Car Man is no exception. The exploration of the two outsiders – Bozier’s Luca and Leonardo McCorkindale’s Angelo – is explosive. They are seemingly polar opposites and yet both embody the agony of not belonging or fitting in. Underlying much of Bourne’s work is an exploration of sexuality and particularly of the homo-erotic and that is the case here too. And despite the anguish and confusion, Bourne shows us the beauty too. It’s mesmerising and haunting.

So, as ever with Bourne’s productions, you get a great deal deal more than you might have bargained for and for all the explosive ‘wham bang thank you Mam’ sexuality of this piece, it might well leave you thinking much more deeply for a good while longer than the couple of hours it lasted on stage.