Sadler’s Wells Theatre: 2 December - 18 January 2009

Choreographed and directed by Matthew Bourne from the film by Tim Burton.

Composer: Terry Davies, based on an original score by Danny Elfman.

 

The great thing about Matthew Bourne is his genius for telling stories, the darker and more operatic the better, all done without you having to understand the special vocabulary of dance.

Tim Burton’s award-winning story of 50s gaucheness and first love, which starred Johnny Depp on film, seemed an unlikely theme for Bourne when he first adapted Scissorhands three years ago. Dark it certainly was, grown out of Burton’s own shyness and his affection for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frankenstein, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. But it also triumphed as a Gothic dance drama, perhaps because Burton had always seen the story as musical.

Bourne’s version stays close to the original: Edward is the final creation (on a sewing machine) of a kindly but mad inventor who dies before replacing the mechanical boy’s scissors with real hands. He’s discovered in his lonely home on the hill by a relentless Avon lady (ding dong), who takes him home to live with her family. He falls for her teenage daughter, Kim, a wholesome blonde cheerleader at the local High school (Hope Springs … work it out) and despite his weirdness quickly begins to integrate into this eccentric corner of suburban America, even setting up Salon Eduoard when word gets out he cuts hair rather well.

Then there’s a boyfriend, Jim, who takes unkindly to Kim’s fast growing affection for the sad-faced hair and hedge trimmer. They tumble to an inevitably tragic finale, leaving Kim in mourning until her old age.

It’s a story that offers opportunities for plenty of stage magic. Towering topiary animals appear in the town, some of which we watch being created, and Matthew Malthous and Kerry Biggin, main casting for Edward and Kim, are entirely bewitching as the story’s true lovers – she melting into his dangerous arms wide-eyed with trust during their final pas-de-deux in the snow.

There was an impressive number of children in the audience. The show is billed as suitable for ages 6+, but their grownups will have had much explaining to do when one of the neighbours, Joyce (Nina Goldman as if straight out of Desperate Housewives), finding Edward’s extraordinariness too sexy to resist, attempts to seduce him but ends up straddling her washing machine – set to fast spin.

The designer’s Technicolor surrealism gives the show a good edge, with the busy musicians in the pit underpinning some routines worthy of Bob Fosse. And the story telling never stops – at one point my companion whispered how interesting it was Matthew Bourne didn’t use any dialogue in this production, unlike his Car Man. It dawned on me a few minutes later; there was no dialogue in that show, either.

The Moral? Being different doesn’t mean you’re not a nice person. Weirdness is in the eye of the beholder, and anyone can seem peculiar - especially in small town 50s Florida. There’s more to it than that, of course, and there’s so much happening on Bourne’s stage that, like a good haircut, you’ll want to go back again and again.

By Bill Bingham – December 2008.

Photos: James Morgan