Lord Of The Flies – Alhambra Theatre

MATTHEW Bourne became famous because of his male Swan Lake in 1997.

He has now created another new show, Lord of the Flies, which reached Bradford last week for a few days. The full house was ecstatic.

This version of Lord Of The Flies is based on William Golding's novel about bullying, published in 1954.

The production was superbly presented: lighting, co-ordinated movement, costumes, settings and make-up.

Of the eight speaking parts, all were well conveyed, especially Sam Plant as the hapless Piggy who managed to keep hold of his glasses, thanks mainly to Sam Archer as Ralph.

The 22-strong ensemble of youngsters filled the stage with abandon.

The problem was that Lord of the Flies is a novel, not an opera, ballet or film, which left Terry Davies, Bourne's music director, very little to work with except perhaps bang, crash and wallop.

I was reminded of Stomp, a show where the cast was encouraged to bang dustbin lids as hard and often as possible.

But the cast last week just vented their spite on each other pretty viciously and left the production team to make the noise. The audience loved it!

John Pettitt