- 13 minutes ago
Choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne has spoken about the risk he took almost 30 years ago in reimagining Swan Lake with an all-male cast — a production now widely billed as the most successful dance theatre production of all time."The idea of male swans just seemed to be that thing which captured my imagination, and then eventually seemed to capture everyone else's," he tells The Independent's Editor-in-Chief Geordie Greig. "It was a bit scary at the time, sticking my neck out and doing something different with a piece that was so hallowed."As part of Latitude's 20th anniversary celebrations, Bourne's New Adventures will take over the Waterfront Stage, performing an excerpt from Swan Lake featuring two of the company's stars. Latitude Festival 2026 takes place 23–26 July at Henham Park, Suffolk. Tickets are available at latitudefestival.com
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00:00Matthew, welcome. It is great to have you on Independent Television.
00:05And we are here to talk about Latitude in association with the Independent and what you're doing there,
00:09and also the nature of ballet and the purpose of ballet.
00:12But let's just start a little bit. I mean, you are one of the great superstars of the arts,
00:17and you did that through your personal journey of endeavour, exploration.
00:25You came from the East End.
00:26Yes.
00:27Your family were not artistic in any way, but you sort of found this channel, this roadway,
00:34and you leapt on and became a revolutionary in redefining what ballet is,
00:40and also in underlining the importance of a cultural world in our country.
00:47How did it begin?
00:49Well, the key to that is in what you said, actually, is starting from a sort of East End background
00:55with parents who,
00:56it wasn't that they weren't into the arts. They loved the cinema. They loved the theatre, actually.
01:01We lived in London. We went to the theatre. They took me to the theatre.
01:05They just were a bit, you know, never had their minds and hearts open to classical music or opera or
01:14ballet or that kind of dance.
01:16We loved dance in our house, you know, so it was always there.
01:20But Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly on TV.
01:22And was the dancing in the kitchen, was the sort of thing?
01:24Oh, yeah. No, we were all singing in our house. You know, everyone was singing to Frank Sinatra or Ella
01:30Fitzgerald or something like that.
01:31You know, it was all on that level. But we loved, we were fans.
01:34And were you the performer within the family?
01:37They all kind of yearned to be a little bit. I mean, my dad kind of thought he was Frank
01:42Sinatra.
01:42My mum liked to sing while she was doing the ironing. And, you know, it's that kind of thing.
01:45My brother, I used to rope him into my little amateur shows that I did.
01:49But I think all those years, because I started training in dance quite late on, 22.
01:5622, you went to, you did a degree?
01:58I auditioned, yeah, for dance. And I was self-taught before that.
02:02And I'd done a lot of amateur kind of shows.
02:07But that whole period in London was a time of learning because I was seeing so much.
02:12And I've seen the best in the world, you know, the best actors, the best dancers.
02:16I got into dance at about the age of 18 through sort of a kind of form of self-education.
02:22I kind of felt I should try, try it, see if I liked it.
02:26Did it feel a bit other? Was it a bit sort of, one doesn't associate the East End with ballet
02:32immediately?
02:33Well, I mean, I found it very, I didn't have the reaction that many people have.
02:39Like, oh, it's so beautiful. I thought it was eccentric. I thought it was very glamorous.
02:44I thought it was a piece of history preserved, which I found fascinating because the choreography was something from quite
02:51a long time ago.
02:52And it looked like something from another era. I loved all that, you know, I loved it.
02:56I was sort of hooked. And then, of course, I discovered other kinds of dance, contemporary dance.
03:01And I was an avid theatre and dance goer for those years before I went to college, my sort of
03:09late teens, early 20s.
03:11And I was there at the theatre five times a week.
03:16I'm worried about the radical nature, because you take classics and you re-engage with them.
03:21You almost reinvent them and give them a whole new identity, but with that pulse of dance and choreography behind
03:27it.
03:28Yeah, it's the freedom that I have in my approach. It's because I started the way I did.
03:34And if I started through a ballet school and I was very young, which many people in dance do start
03:40very young,
03:40I think my subject matter would have been dance, would have been, you know, the exploration of movement or whatever.
03:46I had so many influences from film and theatre and art and travel and all these sorts of things that
03:51went into my work,
03:53which I've always felt helped me connect with a wider audience.
03:56So I think those years were well spent of learning and watching.
04:00Watching and, you know, many times I saw these pieces and really took it in, I think, in some ways.
04:07How to tell a story.
04:09And did you want, because, you know, you take choreography, you turn it into narrative.
04:12Was the story always the pulse of what you're about?
04:16Yes. I mean, I think that was, for me, was always the number one.
04:22Because I know audiences love a good story.
04:25And I never understood why in ballet and opera programmes, they write the story to read before you watch it.
04:30So you understand it.
04:31You know, the scenario. I never have scenarios in my programmes.
04:34I want people to watch my pieces like a film where you don't want to know what's going to happen
04:38next.
04:39You want to experience it as you watch it.
04:41So that sounds as if you would like to have the widest access for the audience to what you do.
04:46Yes. Which is why we still tour all over the country to audiences that don't normally come to see dance.
04:52You know, they're hooked to the sort of theatre, dance theatre that we do.
04:56And if you're in a bar in Huddersfield and there's a, you know, and someone says, what do you do?
05:01And you say, well, I'm in ballet.
05:02Anyway, what's your elevator pitch, why they should come to ballet?
05:06Well, I probably wouldn't say the word ballet in that set up.
05:10I'd say so.
05:11Theatre, you know, I'm in theatre.
05:13Even that's pushing it sometimes.
05:16I would say that I've, at least for my own work, I would say, give it a chance.
05:21Come and see it.
05:21I think you'll like it.
05:22I mean, I, I, what were they like?
05:25I kind of break the ice for humour quite a lot.
05:28That makes people feel comfortable.
05:30It makes people feel they've connected.
05:33Once you've laughed, you've, you've got it.
05:34You've connected, you know, you know, it's for you.
05:37And then I can take people down different pathways.
05:40It sounds all very calculated, you know, the structure.
05:43It's sort of, well, I don't know to say that too much, but I think it is about winning over
05:47audiences.
05:48And I'm aware that a lot of the people come to see us are not experts.
05:52And what, who needs to be?
05:54Why should you be?
05:54You know, you, you're there to be entertained.
05:56So at Latitude, we're going to see a duet, which is a new, a new work.
06:02No, no, not a new work at Latitude.
06:04We're celebrating the anniversary by bringing back our Swan, Swan Lake duet.
06:09I knew you were bringing back Swan Lake.
06:11I thought there was a lot.
06:12Ah, yes, we do.
06:12We're also doing a thing called Door Step Duet, yes, which is our, our, our program.
06:18Each summer we take around, which is hard to get at spaces.
06:22Which is a new.
06:23Yes.
06:25A new commission.
06:26Tell me what I'm going to see.
06:27Well, I don't know yet because it's not been made and I'm not making it.
06:30It's been made by one of my, my great company dancers called Glenn Graham, who's a wonderful guy.
06:36And he's creating a piece called The Bench.
06:38It's all based around things that happen in a park bench.
06:41But you're the godfather of this, essentially.
06:43I am the godfather of it.
06:44Yes, I'm the commissioner.
06:45But you are the father of Swan Lake.
06:47So 1995, first scene.
06:51Yes.
06:51And it surprised everyone by having an all-male cast.
06:56Yes.
06:57And that was seen as not just inventive, but actually rather revolutionary.
07:01It was, and a bit scary at the time as well, because you really, you know, sticking my
07:06neck out and doing something different with a piece that was so, in the dance world, at
07:10least a very sort of hallowed kind of piece.
07:13But I felt if I was going to do it, I'm not a classical ballet choreographer.
07:17I come from a different sort of background.
07:19I call it dance theater.
07:21But so I'd have to do something different for it to be worth doing, you know.
07:25And the idea of male swans just seemed to be that thing which captured my imagination
07:33and then eventually seemed to capture everyone else's.
07:35But also, you know, part of your life, because it was two men falling in love.
07:40Yes.
07:40And it was, that was seen as something incredibly beautiful on stage.
07:44How did that reflect into the politics of sex and children?
07:49Well, times have changed so much, you know.
07:51I mean, I didn't talk about it so openly when I first did it.
07:53It was, after all, it was a prince and a swan.
07:56It wasn't really two men.
07:57It was sort of a creature, a symbol of something, you know, but it was a male fig person.
08:05And, you know, when we went to first went to America with it, I was told not to talk
08:08about that, to play it down, you know.
08:10But of course, it, people come to see it now.
08:14It's become like a family show at Christmas, bring the kids, you know, to see Swan Lake.
08:19And it's, I think it managed to win over an audience that probably, if it was written
08:26down on paper to say, oh, this is a gay Swan Lake, probably might not have come.
08:32But actually, the way we tell the story, you feel very strongly for the characters and you
08:38can relate to it very strongly, whoever you are.
08:40But you were very open and courageous and very early as a teenager going to London Teenage
08:44Centres.
08:46I was, yeah.
08:47And did that seem as if you were fighting against the tide of prejudice?
08:52And again, from a traditional neighbourhood.
08:55Yeah, there was a sense of that, but I never, I thought it was quite exciting.
09:01You know, I, it was natural to me.
09:04I mean, it was the most natural thing in the world.
09:06And I was looking for that thing that was, that was, I felt different at school in a way
09:12that was, because I was gay.
09:15When I actually went out on the gay scene and met other gay teenagers when I was 18, it
09:22felt like coming home.
09:23It didn't feel, it wasn't, didn't feel scary.
09:25It felt like a very natural place to be.
09:28But the coming home, was there also a coming out?
09:31Or did it just sort of emerge into a life?
09:33Yes, it sort of, it sort of gradually came about.
09:36I mean, my parents were very welcoming of my friends.
09:38And they, they used to have open house on a Sunday at my house and I could bring anyone.
09:42And I did start to bring some rather outrageous people into the house.
09:46They were so lovely.
09:48They accepted everyone.
09:49And, and, and it just became apparent that that's what, where I was going.
09:55But you were always prepared to be bold with taking convention and turning it upside down.
10:01From, if you think of, you know, from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, which you put into a Dickensian
10:08orphanage, to Romeo and Romeo.
10:12Yes.
10:13Yeah.
10:13For the experimental workshop.
10:14Yes, I did that early on.
10:16You did.
10:16Um, yes.
10:18And I, I think it's the, the two pieces we're doing this year are big, big sort of taking
10:22big famous pieces and doing things with them, like the Car Man, which is based on, obviously
10:28on Bizet's opera, but it's, it's, it's a sort of film noir-ish thriller with real plot
10:33twists and things happening.
10:35But it's a real changer because you've gone from a 19th century Spanish cigarette factory
10:39to a 1950s sort of greasy diner in the Midwest.
10:42Yeah.
10:42So how, how did that, how did that happen?
10:45Well, it, I was just very open with it.
10:47I loved the music.
10:48I thought it was great music to dance to.
10:50And I, I, I thought I, I didn't particularly want to follow the story of the opera, so I
10:55made up a story.
10:56I, and I was into a lot of Italian and movies and American movies at that time.
11:01And it became a sort of a Italian American community in this small town where this guy
11:05arrives.
11:06The film, The Postman Always Rings Twice and the famous also James M. Cain novel was, became
11:11the sort of premise for the beginning of the story.
11:14And then we, we went in our own direction with it.
11:16And it's, it still remains fairly unique.
11:20I mean, it does have a gay twist in it, to be honest.
11:22And it does have, we use real blood in it, which is something that you never see in ballet,
11:27you know, like blood capsules and things like you would have in a movie.
11:32It's still.
11:33It's a community that is shattered by the entrance of a handsome stranger.
11:37Yeah.
11:37I mean, I won't tell exactly what happens, but it's, it's quite dramatic.
11:41Very dramatic, very exciting.
11:44You know, it's a real, it's a real, it's like watching a great movie.
11:48So when one, you know, there's been a bit of a furor with Timothee Chalamet, the actor,
11:53saying that ballet was elitist and should be sort of almost put out to grass.
11:59Yeah.
12:00How wrong was he?
12:01Poor old Timmy.
12:03Tell us what, tell us what you really think.
12:05I think he's going to regret this for the rest of his life.
12:07I think he's sort of branded with that now.
12:09I'm not sure he, I kind of know what he was trying to say, but it just came out badly.
12:15He was saying that, of course, in the medium he's in, it reaches many, many more people,
12:21which is absolutely true.
12:23The movies reach many more people.
12:25He didn't need to pull in other art forms to say, well, why bother with something that
12:31doesn't reach many people?
12:32Because these are the basis for many of the things that he's currently doing, you know?
12:37So, I mean, I think, and I don't think he's as anti-ballet and opera as he's been made
12:42out to be, but I think.
12:44But it's not helpful, is it?
12:46No.
12:46I mean.
12:47Well, it has been actually, weirdly.
12:49I think it's, it's popular, not popularized, but it's, it's made people talk about it.
12:54It's made people, I think, maybe I'll go and try an opera or maybe I'll go and see a ballet
12:58and, you know, everyone, all these people are out defending it now.
13:02Maybe it is worth seeing.
13:03What's all the fuss about?
13:04So, because there's been criticism of ballet for, always, the hard training, the body image.
13:11Yeah.
13:11A gender at one stage where it would seem very limited.
13:14Yeah.
13:16Is it changing?
13:17Has it changed?
13:19A little bit.
13:20I, even, Swan Lake was, I made 30 years ago, 31 years ago this year.
13:25And, you know, there's still not many ballets around that are about two men or any kind
13:32of gay relationship.
13:33It's, it's, it's still an extreme rarity.
13:36And so, you know, things have changed somewhat, but not to that extent.
13:40You know, we're still the only company that does that kind of work, I think.
13:44And you are beyond busy.
13:47You've, we've, we've, we've got the Red Juice, 10th anniversary.
13:51That's, yeah, that's just finished, a really great tour, yeah, now in the UK.
13:56But again, it's central message.
14:00Nothing matters but art.
14:03Is, is, is, would you say that's a mantra you still believe in?
14:08I mean, I love that.
14:09I love the fact that Powell and Pressburger, when they made the film, that was their, because
14:14they were just coming out of the Second World War, and it was about art is worth, you know,
14:20is, is life and death, you know, it's worth, it's worth fighting for.
14:24And even Churchill said that, didn't he, apparently?
14:27You know, what, what, what are we, what are we fighting for?
14:29What does Matthew Bourne think?
14:31Ah, well, for me, it's, it's central to my life and existence, you know, really.
14:37And, and I, but I think it, it.
14:38Explain that more fully.
14:39Well, it gives, it, it, it gives you a sense of belonging, I think, with, when you connect
14:46with a piece of art, or it can take you to a new place, it can challenge you, it can,
14:51you can, it, you question things, because it's presented to you in a, in a, in a way which
14:58is engaging, or, or you can learn as much from the, from art that you don't like, as much
15:04as the, as the stuff that you love, because I think that, that then you, you question
15:09what, what it is, what, what do people like about this?
15:11Why do people like this, you know?
15:13And, um, so it's a constant debate, which, a really good debate, though, I think, and
15:18a really.
15:19So, so sometimes there's, there's quite a crude political equation made.
15:22You could have two more hospitals, or you can have the opera house, or you can have the
15:26ballet.
15:27Yes, yeah.
15:27How do you, how do you deal with that?
15:29Well, we need both, you know, um, and, um, there was a time during COVID, you know, during
15:35lockdown, where a lot of us in the arts felt that we were a bit useless, and we didn't
15:40have, you know, because we couldn't really do what we were doing.
15:42And you suddenly felt what we were doing for a period of time wasn't that important.
15:47There were more important things, um, that needed to happen and were going on in the world.
15:52But then, after it went on for a while, you realised what you were missing, and what, and people
15:57did realise that it was something that was very much a part of their lives that they
16:00needed, um, to do everything else they do, was, was, what the arts can give you, that
16:06what, what, how it can, um, how it can be central to your life.
16:11And, I mean, listen, the successes you had are legion and legendary.
16:16Have there been sometimes occasions when it's all flopped?
16:21Um, I, I have felt it from time to time, but not in any great way, although I probably
16:28wouldn't be here talking to you now.
16:30You know, I mean, I think, um, uh, there's always that fear of, you know, you can't follow
16:34up a big success.
16:35And so when you have one or two little successes, you think, oh, that's a relief.
16:40You know, you, you're not a one hit wonder.
16:42I mean, it was one like, it could have been like that for a while.
16:44Um, it could have gone that way.
16:46Um, stage nerves do you get when, when something new is, or even, I'm always, I'm always, I've
16:52not changed very much.
16:53I'm always nervous, uh, with anything new or, um, or new cast or new, you know, a show
17:00that I've done before.
17:01Um, I always have that excitement.
17:03Um, and the other thing I've always remained as a fan, I've always remained, uh, a lover of
17:09the arts rather than just a job that I do.
17:11I've never done anything that's not coming from a place of passion, really.
17:15And we're about to see the 30th anniversary of Cinderella.
17:18Yes.
17:19Yeah.
17:19Um, which will be amazing when you look back and think it's 30 years.
17:23Yeah.
17:24No, Cinderella is a really special one.
17:26It's another, it's another epic filmic piece.
17:29It's, it's, uh, Cinderella set during the, the Blitz in London, uh, opens later this year.
17:35Um, and it's, uh, again, it's taken a story that people feel they know, placing it in, in another
17:42time and another place and, and of course, all, everything that comes from that.
17:47Cinderella is a brilliant story for someone going missing.
17:50The shoe in the rubble is the central image, you know, of, of a bombing and, and Cinderella
17:55disappearing.
17:56And if the shoe being found by this guy that this young pilot that she meets, it's, it's an
18:02epic love story that's, uh, across three acts.
18:05It's quite a big piece for us.
18:06It's a, what do you think was the trigger for this incredible imagination, this boldness
18:13and this courage to alter things, which came from this young boy in Hackney?
18:20I think it's that.
18:21It's a non-traditional background and not a non-traditional training and, um, a way into
18:26it that was, that came out of genuine love for what I was seeing in the arts.
18:32You know, I, you know, when you're young, you love everything.
18:36I mean, I, I look back now and I, all the plays, all the musicals, I did, I was very
18:40non-critical.
18:41I wasn't critical about anything.
18:43I kind of took it all in and I loved virtually everything I saw.
18:47Now I'm really hard to please, you know.
18:50Are the things you, um, we talked earlier about how Ted Hughes had never read any Dickens.
18:56Yeah.
18:57Are the things which you are, are sort of gaps in your, you know, you're, you're one of the
19:01titans of the arts world in our country, but shock us by telling us something you haven't
19:06seen or read.
19:07Star Wars.
19:09Never seen Star Wars.
19:10No interest in anything like that.
19:13Sci-fi.
19:13I like real thing, real people, real stories.
19:16I'm not that into that kind of, kind of, um, fantasy stuff, really.
19:22Although I have, I suppose I have touched on that in some of the things I've done.
19:25But yeah, Star Wars, never, never drawn to it.
19:29Well, we'll, we'll, we'll allow you that one, but thank you so much for coming to share
19:35your knowledge and also share what you do for Britain because it is, you are absolutely one
19:41of the, you know, most influential and radical inventive and inspiring people in the arts.
19:49And, um, we thank you for coming to talk to us about the Latitude Festival where you're
19:56going to be godfather and father of two productions.
19:59Yes.
20:00Um, and which is, we're very proud to be in association with The Independent.
20:03Thank you so much.
20:04Thank you very much.
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