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The ballet of barbarism
Lord of the Flies
Birmingham Hippodrome
Part of International Dance Festival Birmingham
2014
**** WILLIAM Golding’s classic 1954 novel
involved a group of schoolboys, the only survivors of a plane crash,
marooned on an uninhabited island. There are random ordinary pupils who don’t know each other, and a boy’s choir who obviously do and the novel charts the changing allegiances and factions as groups evolve into warring tribes. What set out as an exercise in survival descends
into a terrifying dystopia of savagery and ever increasing brutality
including murder until a final manhunt for a deposed leader sets the
island aflame attracting a passing naval ship and rescue. Matthew Bourne, as always, has brought his own
take to the story with the island setting being transformed to what we
are told is an abandoned theatre in an urban landscape where a group of
schoolboys escape what sounds like a riot going on outside by entering
the roller shutter get-in doors of the theatre. It could equally be seen as an abandoned clothing
warehouse, as some people beloved it to be, that hardly matters though,
they were trapped in some empty and unfriendly industrial shed. It is a stark set, created by Bourne’s long time
designer Lez Brotherston with wicker skips, costumes on rails and piled
stage blocks all dramatically lit by Chris Davey.
In the book it is a conch shell which becomes the
symbol of authority controlled first by Ralph, danced by Dominic North
and Piggy, danced by Sam Plant. Here it is a bass drum stick with which
to create a booming call on oil drums. Challenging Ralph is Jack, danced by Danny
Reubens, who’s followers are marked out by hoodies. The real innovation in the production is the way
Bourne has mixed eight professionals with 22 amateurs selected from
auditions around the West Midlands, not that the amateur status was
immediately apparent in what they were asked to do and the ensemble
performed admirably. If there were mistakes they were not spotted and
that, as any old pro will tell you, is the real secret. It is difficult in dance, in a programme lasting
less than two hours, to get across the nuances, psychological triggers
and the terrors and horrors of Golding’s vision of what happens when
people are left to govern themselves. The narrative is mental as much as
physical. But the adaptation and direction from Bourne and
co-director and choreographer Scott Ambler, manages to give us give us a
dark, harsh albeit simplified version. The dancing is aggressive and often gladiatorial,
there are fights, scenes of bullying violence and a steady increase of
the numbers in hoodies until the now abandoned society has collapsed
into bare chests, war paint and makeshift spears – civilisation to
savage in less than two hours including interval. We even have the pigs head on a pole, the Lord
of the Flies of the book. Wild pig hunting in the book though is replaced
by raiding the theatre kiosk for ice creams and crisps – which, if one
is honest, doesn’t quite have the terror or symbolism of a pig hunted
down slaughtered with spears, but then again theatres, even abandoned
ones, have never been known for their wild boar populations. Music by Terry Davies is harsh and pulsating,
none of your rhapsodies and melodies here my son, it swings between
aggressive and almost despairing as the tale of underlying terror
unfolds. At times it is the music of wasteland – a mention here for
excellent cellist Nick Allen who appeared to have the pit all to
himself. Instead of rescue by naval officers here the rescue is affected by a sole UN peacekeeper, whether he is needed for inside or outside the locked roller shutter door is a moot point but under his watchful eye the savages return to schoolboys and slowly, warily, leave, one by one - no longer a tribe.
The hoods lend a sinister air to the dominant and most brutal tribe
There is nothing of beauty nor anything to lift
the human spirit about Lord of the Flies but it is always
engaging and fascinating to watch. It does not have the wow factor of
other Bourne productions but that, perhaps, was never its point, this is
a community dance piece, a production designed to attract and
involve young men, aged from 10 to 20 in this case, and many more who
attended workshops, auditions and rehearsals, and introduce them to the
world of professional dance Professionals in the show, who also included
Layton Williams as Simon, Dan Wright as Roger, Jack Hazelton as Maurice,
Luke Murphy as Sam and Leon Moran as Eric, were spotted mainly by their
more complex dance roles and technical skills but the amateurs, many
already taking various theatre craft courses, did what was asked
wonderfully well and did not let Bourne’s vision down. The concept has been brought to the stage through
his New Adventures Re-Bourne educational arm and if dance had an Ofsted
then an excellent rating might well go on the noticeboard. To 17-05-14
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