PRESS RELEASE
MATTHEW BOURNE and NEW ADVENTURES
TO COMMEMORATE 25 YEARS
WITH A YEAR LONG CELEBRATION
INCLUDING
NUTCRACKER!, EARLY ADVENTURES, PLAY WITHOUT WORDS
AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
MATTHEW BOURNE’S SLEEPING BEAUTY
Matthew Bourne and New Adventures are delighted to announce a year long celebration
of work and special events to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the company’s first
performance in 1987. New Adventures (formerly Adventures in Motion Pictures) gave it’s
first performances in the late eighties under the direction of Bourne, Emma Gladstone and
David Massingham. In 1991 Bourne became the sole Artistic Director and guided the
company from a small scale touring troupe to a worldwide dance phenomenon, making
Bourne himself a star choreographer with an international reputation. The name change to
New Adventures in 2002 brought further success, guided by co-director, Robert Noble, and
a new repertoire of popular premieres, major revivals and extraordinary audience
development.
Throughout their anniversary year, New Adventures will play over 300 performances at a
record 32 UK venues, several of them more than once. This will include 20 weeks (over the 4
productions) at the company’s resident home Sadler’s Wells. The productions will feature
over 80 dancers and 30 musicians.
Matthew Bourne said today “When a group of friends and graduates from the Laban
Centre decided to create a new dance company together in 1987, none of them would
have dared to dream what lay ahead. From those unpaid early days of small scale touring
in a minibus, equipped with a dance floor, an iron and a dodgy sound system, grew a
company that eventually conquered the West End, Broadway and turned a whole new
audience of theatre goers into dance lovers. Of this, I am both grateful and incredibly
proud. After 25 years, it really does seem like something worth celebrating!”
Matthew Bourne’s NUTCRACKER!
Touring throughout the UK in November 2011 and then between January – May 2012
Sadler’s Wells - 6 December 2011 – 22 January 2012 (Press Night 14 December 2011)
The 25th Anniversary celebrations start with Matthew Bourne’s NUTCRACKER! Touring to 20 UK
venues (making this tour the company’s largest ever to date), this seasonal favourite from the
New Adventures repertoire will also mark the company’s 10th consecutive festive season at
Sadler’s Wells, where it will play for seven weeks.
EARLY ADVENTURES
Spitfire, Town and Country and The Infernal Galop
TICKETS ON SALE FOR SADLER’S WELLS – 14 NOVEMBER 2011
Bath Theatre Royal 9 – 12 May 2012, Poole Lighthouse 15 & 16 May 2012, Brighton Corn
Exchange 17 – 19 May 2012, Sadler’s Wells 21 – 26 May 2012 (Press Night 22 May 2012),
Northampton Royal 28 – 30 May 2012, Richmond Theatre 31 May – 2 June 2012, Cardiff
Sherman Theatre 5 & 6 June 2012, Truro Hall for Cornwall 8 & 9 June, Oxford Playhouse 11 – 13
June 2012, Cambridge Arts Theatre 14 – 16 June, Warwick Arts Centre 18 – 20 June 2012,
Bromley Churchill Theatre 21 – 23 June 2012 and Nottingham Playhouse 25 June 2012.
EARLY ADVENTURES is a triple bill of the works that launched Bourne’s career and cemented
New Adventures reputation for wit, style and sheer entertainment. It also sees the company
return to some of the small and mid-scale venues that championed the company in its early
years.
Spitfire was Bourne’s first hit in 1988. Both a celebration of masculine vanity and an affectionate
comment on the preening grandeur of the classical male dancer, it hilariously places the most
famous 19th Century ballet showstopper in the world of men’s underwear advertising and mail
order catalogue photography.
Town and Country - Remembered as the piece that most crystallized the Bourne style; gloriously
witty and ironic but also strangely moving and heartfelt. It explores notions of national
character from a bygone era through the evocative music of Edward Elgar, Noel Coward and
Percy Grainger, amongst others. This 1991 two part dance revue features a high speed version
of the classic film, Brief Encounter, a furtive encounter between two repressed gents, a jolly
clog dance with a violent conclusion, a daringly wild ride on children’s scooters and an
eccentric version of Pomp and Circumstance plated on the ukelele!
The Infernal Galop – A breakthrough hit in 1989, this “Franglais Spectacular” was inspired by
icons of France in the 1930s and 1940s; Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, Jacques Tati etc.
Through a series of surprising and saucy vignettes this is France as seen by the uptight English
imagination with all the traditional clichés joyously paraded for our entertainment and
climaxing in Offenbach’s inevitable Can-Can!
Matthew Bourne’s PLAY WITHOUT WORDS
Devised by Matthew Bourne, music by Terry Davies
inspired by Joseph Losey’s film by special arrangement with StudioCanal,
based on ‘The Servant’ by Robin Maugham.
TICKETS ON SALE FOR SADLER’S WELLS – 14 NOVEMBER 2011
Leicester Curve 29 June – 7 July 2012, Sadler’s Wells 12 July – 15 August 2012 (Press Night 18 July
2012), Norwich Theatre Royal 7 – 11 August 2012
Chelsea, 1965. Behind the privileged façade of domestic social order lies a struggle for power,
territory and sexual domination. In a suave Chelsea home an urbane master and his beautiful
fiancee welcome their new manservant, Prentice. What follows will change their lives forever Returning for it’s first revival, PLAY WITHOUT WORDS was a critical and popular success, when it
premiered as part of the National Theatre’s experimental TRANSFORMATIONS season in 2002.
Designer Lez Brotherston and Lighting Designer Paule Constable repeat their Olivier nominated
work, with choreography by Matthew Bourne and the Original Company. Terry Davies’
acclaimed Jazz influenced score will be played live at all performances.
PLAY WITHOUT WORDS was the first production presented by New Adventures (after the name
change from Adventures In Motion Pictures) and won the 2003 Olivier Awards for Best
Entertainment and Best Theatre Choreographer.
World Premiere
Matthew Bourne’s SLEEPING BEAUTY
a gothic fairy tale
Music by Tchaikovsky
New Scenario by Matthew Bourne after Perrault and Petipa
CHRISTMAS 2012
ON SALE DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED
New Adventures’ year of celebration culminates with the World Premiere of Matthew Bourne’s
latest re-imagining of an iconic and beloved ballet classic. Matthew Bourne’s SLEEPING BEAUTY
sees the choreographer return to the music of Tchaikovsky to complete the trio of the
composer’s ballet masterworks that started in 1992 with Nutcracker! and, most famously, in
1995, with the international hit Swan Lake.
Perrault’s timeless fairy tale, about a young girl cursed to sleep for one hundred years, was
turned into a legendary ballet by Tchaikovsky and choreographer, Marius Petipa, in 1890.
Bourne takes this date as his starting point, setting the Christening of Aurora, the story’s heroine,
in the year of the ballets first performance; the height of the Fin-de-Siecle period when fairies,
vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination. As Aurora grows into a young
woman, we move forwards in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical golden
age of long Summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes. Years later,
awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day; a world more
mysterious and wonderful than any Fairy story!
Matthew Bourne’s haunting new scenario is a gothic tale for all ages; the traditional tale of
good vs. evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, across the
decades, that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.
Britain’s most popular dance showman works again with three of his regular collaborators, and
New Adventures Associate Artists; The Tony and Olivier award winning designers, Lez Brotherston
(Set and Costumes) and Paule Constable (Lighting) and Sound Designer, Paul Groothuis who
created the acclaimed surround-sound for last years hit production of Cinderella.
In addition to the productions above, there will also be many other events to celebrate the
milestone of 25 years. Several are detailed below. Further events to be announced soon.
MATTHEW BOURNE AND HIS NEW ADVENTURES
Published by Faber 17 November 2011
This is a new revised edition of the book first published by Faber in 2000. Featuring the New York
Times Dance Critic, Alastair Macaulay’s interviews with Bourne about his work with Adventures
in Motion Pictures, New Adventures and in Musical Theatre, the new edition covers everything
in the last decade (since the formation of New Adventures) and features new chapters on The
Car Man, Play Without Words, Edward Scissorhands and Dorian Gray as well as major revivals
and Matthew’s work on the Olivier award winning musicals My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins.
There will be a PLATFORM on MONDAY 21 NOVEMBER AT 6.00PM at the NATIONAL THEATRE’s
LYTTELTON THEATRE with Matthew Bourne in conversation with Variety critic David Benedict,
followed by a book signing.
HONORARY COMPANION TRINITY LABAN
On 9 December 2011 Matthew will be awarded the title of Honorary Companion of his old
college, Trinity Laban Conservatoire (formerly The Laban Centre). It was at the Laban Centre 25
years ago, on 15 July 1987, that Adventures in Motion Pictures gave its first performance.
CHANNEL 4 – MATTHEW BOURNE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL (w/t)
This Christmas, to celebrate the world and work of Matthew Bourne, Channel 4 has
commissioned a new dance film that will showcase Bourne’s signature abilities to
emotionally engage an audience. This hour long special will feature familiar characters
from many of Bourne's best known works, but all reinvented for the camera in studio and
filmed in 360 degrees. Matthew Bourne Christmas Special (w/t) is a journey through a series
of magical worlds, where stories are told through dance, and promises to delight both
Bourne’s fans and new audiences alike. Channel 4 and More4 are showcasing a number
of dance films over Christmas, including another chance to see Matthew Bourne’s
Nutcracker!
SKY ARTS
New Adventures continue their ongoing relationship with Sky Arts. The recently filmed Swan
Lake in 3D, with the 2010 cast, will be one of the main Christmas highlights for Sky Arts,
transmitting on 22 December at 8.00pm on Sky Arts 2 and on Sky 3D.
NEW ADVENTURES CHOREOGRAPHER AWARD – SHOWCASE PERFORMANCE
AUTUMN 2012
The showcase performance of the New Adventures Choreographer Award winner James
Cousins and runner-up Tom Jackson Greaves will feature choreography created with the help
of both Matthew Bourne and the New Adventures team.
RE:BOURNE – SUMMER ADVENTURE
30 July – 3 August 2012
RE:BOURNE, the education wing of New Adventures, launches a Summer School with a
difference. Each year will be differently themed and varied in structure. SUMMER ADVENTURE
will be by invitation only and will be mostly made up from those dancers who New Adventures
Associates have singled out at our annual auditions for further consideration. Next years project
will, as part of the 25th Anniversary, concentrate on the repertoire of New Adventures and the
Matthew Bourne style of narrative driven choreography and will feature the reconstruction of a
never before seen Bourne piece, WATCH WITH MOTHER, made in 1991, but never performed
publicly.
For further press information please contact Simon Raw on 07818 444 115
or Mark Senior on 07800 665 904 or simon@rawpr.co.uk/mark@rawpr.co.uk
NEW ADVENTURES BIOGRAPHY
New Adventures is the UK’s most in demand contemporary Dance/Theatre touring company.
Under the inspired leadership of Artistic Director, Matthew Bourne, it has, over the last 25 years,
changed the landscape of British dance with an award-winning repertory of works that have
brought unprecedented new audiences to theatres throughout the UK and internationally.
Matthew Bourne and his team of world-class collaborators have consistently produced some of
the most successful dance productions ever staged. Since it’s formation in 2002, NEW
ADVENTURES has created an enviable repertory of acclaimed new works (Play Without Words,
Edward Scissorhands, Dorian Gray and Lord Of The Flies) as well as new productions of popular
favourites from Matthew Bourne’s former company, Adventures In Motion Pictures (Nutcracker!,
Swan Lake, Highland Fling, The Car Man and Cinderella) The Company regularly employs over
70 dancers annually, and they are widely recognised as the finest group of actor/dancers
working in the UK today.
New Adventures is proud to be Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London where it
regularly performs record-breaking extended seasons. The company annually undertakes
extensive country-wide touring, appearing at more venues and giving more performances
each year than any other UK dance company. British dance’s biggest export for over 10 years,
New Adventures has performed seasons at the worlds most iconic venues (Sydney Opera
House, New York City Center, The Chatalet in Paris, The Kennedy Center, Washington and The
Moscow Arts Theatre) the most prestigious Festivals (Edinburgh, Ravenna and Chekhov
International Festivals) and regular tours to Japan, the USA, Australia, Europe and Russia.
Mixing popular appeal with a groundbreaking and unique theatrical language, New
Adventures is one of the great success stories of British Theatre. The Company has notched up a
staggering ten Olivier nominations for it’s productions, has won the Manchester Evening News
Dance Award four times and was given a Special TMA award for it’s commitment to national
touring.
New Adventures has also been a pioneer in taking dance to wider audiences through the
medium of film. Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! is the only full length dance production to be
shown on BBC1 in the last 30 years; A studio adaptation of The Car Man is still a dance
bestseller, and the recent recording of Swan Lake by Sky Arts 3D became the first ballet to be
shot in 3D for cinema and DVD release.
In 2008 the company created it’s charitable wing, Re:Bourne, which aims to inspire and
encourage young people and adults, with a year round programme of creative projects,
workshops and educational initiatives based on the New Adventures ethos of dance theatre.
This was followed in 2010 by the launch of The New Adventures Choreographer Award (NACA)
which showcases the work of a young choreographer, and was created to honour Bourne’s
50th Birthday.
To coincide with Matthew Bourne’s 25th year as Artistic Director, Faber are publishing an
updated version of his 1999 book (with Alastair Macaulay) this time titled “Matthew Bourne and
his adventures in dance” which brings the story up to date including the launch of New
Adventures in 2002.
The 25th Anniversary celebration also see’s the company performing six diverse works at thirty
two UK venues culminating in the World Premiere of Matthew Bourne’s production of
Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty in October 2012.
MATTHEW BOURNE BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Bourne is widely hailed as the UK’s most popular and successful Choreographer/
Director. He is the creator of the world’s longest running ballet production, a five - time Olivier
Award winner, and the only British director to have won the Tony Award for both Best
Choreographer and Best Director of a Musical.
Matthew started training to be a dancer at the comparatively late age of 22. He studied
Dance Theatre and Choreography at The Laban Centre graduating in 1985 but spending a
further year with the college’s performance company Transitions. Matthew danced
professionally for 14 years creating many roles in his own work. In 1999 he gave his final
performance playing The Private Secretary in the Broadway production of Swan Lake. Matthew
Bourne was the Artistic Director of his first company, Adventures in Motion Pictures, from 1987
until 2002. During those 15 years AMP became the UK’s most innovative and popular
dance/theatre company creating an enormous new audience for dance with its
groundbreaking work both at home and internationally.
Works created for AMP include Overlap Lovers, Spitfire, Buck and Wing, The Infernal Galop,
Town and Country (Olivier nomination), Deadly Serious, The Percys of Fitzrovia, Nutcracker!
(Olivier nomination), Highland Fling, Swan Lake (numerous international awards including two
Tonys, Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ Circle, Astaire Award, Olivier Award, South Bank Show Award,
Time Out Award, LA Critics’ Circle, MEN Award, Dramalogue Award), Cinderella (Olivier
Award, LA Critics Award) The Car Man (Evening Standard Theatre Award, Manchester Evening
News Award, Olivier nomination).
In 2002 Matthew, along with Co-Director, Robert Noble, launched his current company, New
Adventures, with two highly successful productions. Play Without Words premiered as part of the
National Theatre’s Transformation Season and went on to win Best Entertainment at that year's
Olivier Awards. It then embarked on a world tour and premiered in New York, Los Angeles and
Moscow in 2005. Matthew Bourne’s new production of Nutcracker! also premiered at Sadler’s
Wells in 2002 and became an instant popular hit with audiences and critics, returning the
following year for a second sell-out season. It became the first ballet to be screened by BBC1 in
over 20 years and then also embarked on a world tour. In 2012 it celebrates it's 20th Birthday
with its longest ever UK Tour.
Next came New Adventures’ acclaimed revival of one of
Bourne’s most popular works, the “Romantic wee ballet”, Highland Fling, at Sadler’s Wells and
on tour throughout the UK and Japan.
A new production was added to the repertory of the company in 2005 with the creation of
Edward Scissorhands, based on Tim Burton’s classic movie. This played for 11 weeks at Sadler’s
Wells prior to a UK tour which was followed by a visit to the Far East and a long tour of the
United States in 2006/7 during which it won the Drama Desk Award for “Best Entertainment”. In
2008 it was the first dance production by a British Company to play the Sydney Opera House for
a sell-out 3 week season.
Matthews now legendary production of Swan Lake also continues to tour, with performances
throughout the World and record breaking seasons it the UK. Last year it made a triumphant
return to New York, 10 years after its Broadway season, and this year it was filmed in 3D for SKY
Arts with a cast featuring Richard Winsor, Dominic North and Nina Goldman.
Bourne’s dance-thriller The Car Man returned in 2007 proving more popular than ever with
audiences in London and around the UK. During this highly successful tour, Bourne was
presented with the Theatre Managers Association (TMA) Special Award for services to Dance,
touring and audience development.
Matthew Bourne is a Resident Artist at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. His company, New Adventures,
has enjoyed a special relationship with the theatre and its audiences for nearly 20 years and
was invited to be Resident Company in 2006.
Matthew has also created choreography for several major revivals of classic musicals including
Cameron Mackintosh’s productions of Oliver! (1994 and 2009 Olivier nomination) and My Fair
Lady (2002- Olivier Award) as well as the National Theatre’s revival of South Pacific (2002). In
2004 Matthew co-directed (with Richard Eyre) and choreographed (with Stephen Mear) the hit
West End musical Mary Poppins for which he won an Olivier Award for Best Theatre
Choreographer. It went on to premiere on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre in 2006
(where it is still running) earning Bourne another two Tony nominations. He has collaborated
on projects with leading directors, Trevor Nunn, Richard Eyre, Sam Mendes, Yukio Ninagawa
and John Caird and has created dances and roles for such wide-ranging performers as
Jonathan Pryce, Lynn Seymour, Dawn French, Adam Cooper, David Walliams, Julie Walters,
Michael Sheen and Rowan Atkinson.
His film work includes television productions of his stage work including Swan Lake (1996 Emmy
nomination and 2011 in 3D), The Car Man (2001), Nutcracker! (2003) and original work such as
the John Betjeman inspired Late Flowering Lust (1993) with Sir Nigel Hawthorne and his own AMP
Company.
Matthew was the subject of a South Bank Show in 1997 and in 1999 he presented Channel 4’s
Dance 4 Series. The channel 4 documentary Bourne to Dance, which he also presented, was
broadcast on Christmas Day 2001. His production of Swan Lake is featured in Stephen Daldry’s
hit film Billy Elliot.
Other theatre and dance work includes; As You Like It (RSC/John Caird), Children of Eden
(West End/John Caird), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aix en Provence/Robert Carsen), The
Tempest (NYT), Show Boat (Malmo Stadsteater, Sweden), Peer Gynt (Barbican/Yukio
Ninagawa), Watch With Mother (NYDC), Boutique and The Infernal Galop (Images of Dance
and The Sarasota Ballet), Watch Your Step (Irving Berlin Gala), French and Saunders Live in 2000
(UK tour), Dearest Love (Ballet Boyz). In 1999 Faber and Faber published Matthew Bourne and his Adventures in Motion Pictures,
edited by theatre and dance writer, Alastair Macaulay. The second edition will bring the story
up to date when it is published in November 2011. In 1997 he was made an Honorary Fellow of
his former college, The Laban Centre, and in 2007 received Honarary Doctorates from The Open
University and The De Montford University in Leicester. in 2010 he received the same honour
from both Plymouth and Kingston Universities and in 2011 from Roehampton University. Later this
year he will be made a Companion of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
Matthew Bourne has twice been nominated as Best Director at the Olivier Awards and his
achievements in choreography have been recognized with over 30 international awards
including The Evening Standard Award, South Bank Show Award, Time Out Award and the
Astaire Award for Dance on Broadway. In the 2001 New Years Honours, Matthew was awarded
an OBE for Services to Dance and in 2003 he was the recipient of the prestigious Hamburg
Shakespeare Prize for the Arts (only the second dance recipient after Dame Margot
Fonteyn!) In 2010 he was the first recipient of The British Inspiration Award (in the Arts Category).
His latest original production for New Adventures, Dorian Gray, received it's World Premiere at
The 2008 Edinburgh International Festival, and became the most successful dance production
in the Festivals 65 year history. In 2010, he saw Swan Lake return triumphantly to New York at
City Center and created a new production of Cinderella which broke all box office records at
Sadler’s Wells before embarking on a sell-out UK tour playing to over 240,000 people over 200
performances.
In 2010 the New Adventures Choreographer Award (NACA) was created by Matthew's friends
and colleagues, to celebrate his 50th Birthday. The first award, which helps and mentors a
choreographer throughout a year culminating in the creation of a showcase evening of work,
was won by 22 year old James Cousins in 2011.
At the beginning of 2011 he directed the New Adventures and Re:Bourne production of William
Golding's Lord Of The Flies at the Glasgow Theatre Royal, which featured young men from local
schools with little or no theatrical experience. Later this year see's the 20th Anniversary
production of Nutcracker! which will launch a year of celebrations to commemorate the 25th
Anniversary of the launch of Bourne's companies AMP and New Adventures culminating in the
World Premiere of Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty at the end of 2012.