Life
The Red Shoes review: Trademark Bourne wit in an ultimately tragic tale ★★★★★
Matthew Bourne’s ballet about a woman who must choose between love and dance is full of passion and self-awareness
December 24, 2025 12:17
Matthew Bourne’s ballet about a woman who must choose between love and dance is full of passion and self-awareness
December 24, 2025 12:17Jewish composer Bernard Herrmann was best known for his work on movie classics including Citizen Kane, North by Northwest and the terrifying Psycho (he had a longtime collaboration with Hitchcock).
He also wrote what is surely the most romantic film score ever composed for the 1947 film, The Ghost and Mrs Muir. It is this passionate music that features strongly throughout Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, currently playing at Sadler’s Wells in London.
Bourne has used a selection of Herrmann’s other film scores to accompany the story which was originally made into a film starring ballerina Moira Shearer in 1948 – itself inspired by a rather dark tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
Bourne’s New Adventures company brings the story of Victoria Page – torn between her love for ballet and her love for struggling composer Julian Craster – to vivid life. The idea of a dancer unable to choose between her art and a man seems rather dated – today there are plenty of ballerinas who have both families and a successful career, but in the 1940s there was an “all or nothing” attitude to ballet.
Although the story has a tragic conclusion, the ballet is suffused with Bourne’s trademark wit: he pokes gentle fun at the now rarely performed ballet Les Sylphides and how dancers often “mark” their steps with basic hand movements during rehearsals. Lez Brotherston’s clever set includes a rotating proscenium arch and dizzying screen projections, while the colourful costumes evoke late 1940s glamour.
At the performance I saw, Cordelia Braithwaite was a passionate Victoria Page, with meltingly beautiful port de bras. Leonardo McCorkindale danced Julian Craster with assurance while Andy Monaghan dominated the stage as the jealous impresario Boris Lermontov. The Red Shoes will be at Sadler’s Wells until 18 January with a variety of dancers alternating in the lead roles.
The Red Shoes
Sadler’s Wells
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