Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake Festival Theatre Edinburgh 8th April 2025 Review
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh this week (Tue 8 to Sat 12 April) and, as always, audiences are flocking to see this show. MB’s Swan Lake is celebrating its 30th year in 2025 and this show is, as the title tells us, a little bit different than what has gone before. This is Swan Lake The Next Generation and it is doing exactly what the title says, giving many of the next generation of dancers who have come through MB’s New Adventures development programmes, their Cygnet and Swan Schools, their opportunity to be a part of this dance/theatrical phenomenon.
For tonight’s performance the principal roles were performed as below
The Prince - Leonardo McCorkindale
The Swan/The Stranger - Rory Macleod
The Queen - Katrina Lyndon
The Girlfriend/Bag Lady/Nurse 8 - Bryony Wood
The Private Secretary - James Lovell
If you have not yet seen Matthew Bourne’s re-imagining of this classic then you are in for a big surprise as this work is something completely different from anything that you will have seen before. If you are, as many people in the audience tonight were, coming back to this show again, then there are still surprises to be had. Every time that I see this production you realise not only how uniquely innovative it is, but just how easily you can miss many of the little stories that are unfolding between people all the time. Of course, creating choreography for Swan Lake to be performed by male dancers is still the big change here. These, however, are not fluffy, flouncing swans, but feral and at times vicious creatures and the real life movements of swans that Mathew Bourne incorporates into this choreography is rich in detail. That classic portrayal of the white and black swan being defined by movement is still here too, along with more than a few homages to the classic choreography of Swan Lake.
To perform any of the roles in a MB production you have to not only be a highly skilled dancer, but also an instinctive and expressive story teller, as this is as much a story told in motion as it is a dance performance. This is also very much a theatrical production as opposed to one aimed purely at a dance based audience.
Tonight, that emotional combination of a troubled young man, the Prince, was performed with a powerfully emotional performance from Leonardo McCorkindale. When MB re-imagined Swan Lake, he also re-defined the male roles here, and they are no longer in the background to the female dancers. The role of the Prince here is a huge one as he is pretty much never off stage, and the physical demands on anyone performing this role must be huge. Here, Leonardo McCorkindale (who only joined New Adventures in 2023) gave a physical performance to match his dramatic one.
The role of the emotionally (to her son anyhow) ice-cold Queen was defined in style by Katrina Lyndon who joined New adventures in 2011. It is the Queen who creates much of the unspoken background narrative to what has made the Prince the young man that he has become.
As always, it is the White/Black Swan (the Stranger) that is the defining character in this story and over the years it has, to some people’s surprise, become one of the most coveted leading male roles in the dance world. This is an enormously physical role for any dancer to take on and for this performance, Rory Macleod (joined New Adventures in 2021) clearly gave this audience what they wanted to see tonight. There is also always that extra and hard to define aspect to this role in that the Swan, particularly the Stranger, should make magnetic entrances that make everyone else on stage sort of stand still. That is always in the eye of the beholder.
A mention of course has to go to both Bryony Wood and James Lovell as the Girlfriend and Private Secretary.
As much a part of the success of this production as any of the choreography or performances is the staging itself and Lez Brotherston (set and costume design), Paule Constable (lighting design), and Ken Hampton (sound design) need credited for their part in this Swan Lake magic. A credit of course has also to go to Duncan McLean for some often very subtle video and production design.
One constant and never changing part of this production is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music for Swan Lake and I like to think that he would have been more than pleased with how Mathew Bourne has interpreted this with his re-imagined story and choreography.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
For tonight’s performance the principal roles were performed as below
The Prince - Leonardo McCorkindale
The Swan/The Stranger - Rory Macleod
The Queen - Katrina Lyndon
The Girlfriend/Bag Lady/Nurse 8 - Bryony Wood
The Private Secretary - James Lovell
If you have not yet seen Matthew Bourne’s re-imagining of this classic then you are in for a big surprise as this work is something completely different from anything that you will have seen before. If you are, as many people in the audience tonight were, coming back to this show again, then there are still surprises to be had. Every time that I see this production you realise not only how uniquely innovative it is, but just how easily you can miss many of the little stories that are unfolding between people all the time. Of course, creating choreography for Swan Lake to be performed by male dancers is still the big change here. These, however, are not fluffy, flouncing swans, but feral and at times vicious creatures and the real life movements of swans that Mathew Bourne incorporates into this choreography is rich in detail. That classic portrayal of the white and black swan being defined by movement is still here too, along with more than a few homages to the classic choreography of Swan Lake.
To perform any of the roles in a MB production you have to not only be a highly skilled dancer, but also an instinctive and expressive story teller, as this is as much a story told in motion as it is a dance performance. This is also very much a theatrical production as opposed to one aimed purely at a dance based audience.
Tonight, that emotional combination of a troubled young man, the Prince, was performed with a powerfully emotional performance from Leonardo McCorkindale. When MB re-imagined Swan Lake, he also re-defined the male roles here, and they are no longer in the background to the female dancers. The role of the Prince here is a huge one as he is pretty much never off stage, and the physical demands on anyone performing this role must be huge. Here, Leonardo McCorkindale (who only joined New Adventures in 2023) gave a physical performance to match his dramatic one.
The role of the emotionally (to her son anyhow) ice-cold Queen was defined in style by Katrina Lyndon who joined New adventures in 2011. It is the Queen who creates much of the unspoken background narrative to what has made the Prince the young man that he has become.
As always, it is the White/Black Swan (the Stranger) that is the defining character in this story and over the years it has, to some people’s surprise, become one of the most coveted leading male roles in the dance world. This is an enormously physical role for any dancer to take on and for this performance, Rory Macleod (joined New Adventures in 2021) clearly gave this audience what they wanted to see tonight. There is also always that extra and hard to define aspect to this role in that the Swan, particularly the Stranger, should make magnetic entrances that make everyone else on stage sort of stand still. That is always in the eye of the beholder.
A mention of course has to go to both Bryony Wood and James Lovell as the Girlfriend and Private Secretary.
As much a part of the success of this production as any of the choreography or performances is the staging itself and Lez Brotherston (set and costume design), Paule Constable (lighting design), and Ken Hampton (sound design) need credited for their part in this Swan Lake magic. A credit of course has also to go to Duncan McLean for some often very subtle video and production design.
One constant and never changing part of this production is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music for Swan Lake and I like to think that he would have been more than pleased with how Mathew Bourne has interpreted this with his re-imagined story and choreography.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com