SIR Matthew Bourne’s legendary dance thriller The Car Man returns to Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre this month - its first tour since 2015.
Loosely based on Bizet’s opera Carmen, the New Adventures production replaces the Spanish cigarette factory with a 1950s garage-diner in the American Mid-West, where the dreams and passions of a small town are shattered by the arrival of a handsome, enigmatic stranger. Fuelled by heat and desire, the locals are driven into a spiral of greed, lust, betrayal and revenge.
The magnetic Luca - the ‘car man’ - is played by Will Bozier and Harrison Dowzell, both former lead Swans in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, alongside New Adventures’ popular stars Cordelia Braithwaite and Ashley Shaw as the alluring Lana.
Says Matthew: “We are still the only company in the world to perform this production, yet the roles of Luca, Lana, Angelo, Rita and Dino have become as legendary as the show itself and a unique part of the UK dance landscape for several generations of young dancers.
“I’m proud that New Adventures never just ‘revives’ a show - we re-invent, question and grow with each new cast.”
The Car Man was first seen in 2000, winning the Evening Standard Award for Musical Event of the Year and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Choreography. It was last seen in a revival for The Royal Albert Hall’s 150th Birthday in 2022.
Q: Matthew, why were you first attracted to Bizet’s Carmen?
Jamie Duncan Campbell as Vito. The show takes inspiration from cinema
“I resisted it for quite a while because there were so many versions of it, both ballet and opera, but I kept listening to the score and I felt it was the right kind of music for my company, New Adventures.
“I also felt in 2000, when I made the original piece, that it suggested a different kind of movement than we’d done before. It was particularly listening to the Shchedrin arrangement (the 40-minute ballet version using only strings and percussion) which got me really excited. I thought, ‘We’ve got to do this, we’ve got to use this music’. But to stop myself, and probably everyone else, thinking, ‘Oh no, not another Carmen’, I thought, well, ‘We’ll use the music but we’ll tell a different story’ and that’s what really inspired me and made the whole thing feel like a totally original project.
“I was also keen to create a dance thriller, full of plot twists and suspense.”
Q: How does New Adventures’ show differ from the original Carmen?
“Quite a lot but there are parallels with the opera story; there are elements of lust, fate, revenge and murder and all those things that are associated with Carmen. The essence of Carmen is there, but we’ve set it in a different place and time.
Will Bozier as the enigmatic Luca.
“The Car Man is set in an Italian-American community in a small mid-western American town in the 1960. But there is quite a European feel and, although there are some obvious American elements, we’ve tried to add a gritty kind of realism, associated with Italian, French and Spanish cinema, and to avoid Hollywood glamour.
“We came up with a name for this fictional town: Harmony - it’s also by chance the name of several real towns in the States. I was looking for something charming like Pleasantville, a name that could become increasingly ironic as the story develops. The characters are very gutsy and real, requiring a whole different acting style from much of the New Adventures repertory. It was certainly a change of direction in 2000 following the royal court and lakeside fantasy of Swan Lake and the more genteel period feel of our war-time Cinderella.
“The Car Man has always been a piece that has challenged my company as actors too. The movement that came from this was much more earthy and contemporary. You could call it a classic film noir but one that tells a story that no film of that era would have been able to tell! In dance terms, 26 years on, it remains a comparative rarity, as the first ballet to depict bisexuality as a major part of the plot.”
Q: You mentioned the orchestration by Rodion Shchedrin being only 40 minutes long. Was the other hour of music commissioned?
“Yes. I really love the Shchedrin music and wanted to use this so I contacted Terry Davies and asked if he’d consider composing further music based on Bizet’s Carmen. There is a substantial amount of great music that Shchedrin didn’t use in his version, so Terry’s brief was to use this other music, again with strings and percussion, to come up with a full-length score. With other shows I’d choreographed, Nutcracker!, Swan Lake and Cinderella, I made the story fit the existing score but with this piece I was able to work in reverse. With certain scenes or dances I was able to ask, what kind of music do we need for this? It was the first time I’d collaborated with a composer to create a complete score.
Based on Bizet's opera Carmen, the show is set in a 1950s garage-diner in the American Mid-West. Images: Johan Persson (Image: Johan Persson)
“I think he results are very filmic and incredibly contemporary in feel. A tribute not only to Terry and Shchedrin, but to the enduring genius of Bizet.”
Q: Is there a title Car Man character?
“The title is there partly to differentiate between this production and previous versions of Carmen, but also to give an indication that we’re retaining elements of the original, particularly in the music. In terms of character, the title is quite literal really, it relates to the idea of mechanics working in a garage where most of the production is set. More specifically, it refers to Luca, a stranger who arrives in Harmony and takes a part-time job as a mechanic at the local garage/diner. He is the Car Man, the title character. Luca is a kind of fate figure who affects everyone’s lives and becomes the catalyst for change.
“Lana can also be seen as a Carmen figure, as can Angelo and Rita be seen as nods to Don Jose and Michela.”
Q: Why revive The Car Man In 2026?
“Apart from the special Albert Hall London revival in 2022, the show hasn’t been seen around the UK, on tour, for over 10 years. The Car Man has become one of New Adventures’ most popular productions since its creation in 2000. It’s also probably the most popular show amongst my dancers who all want the chance to play these challenging roles. There is now a whole new generation of talented New Adventures artists ready to take up that challenge and that has to be one of the other main reasons for bringing it back into the repertory in 2026.
“It’s a favourite of mine because it combines my great love of cinema with a highly theatrical approach. It also gives me a great excuse to revisit many of my much-loved old movies for research!”
- Matthew Bourne's The Car Man runs at the Alhambra Theatre from October 20-24. Call (01274) 432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk