Corruption, celebrity and confidence

Lloyd Evans talks to Matthew Bourne about his new ballet Dorian Gray and co-directing Oliver!

Matthew Bourne is a whirlwind. He’s a dynamo, a powerhouse, a force of nature. He has created the busiest ballet company on earth and turned Britain into the world’s leading exporter of dance theatre. His breakthrough came in 1995 with an all-male production of Swan Lake which won awards in London, New York and Los Angeles. Since then he has updated the Nutcracker, re-imagined Carmen as The Car Man, and created a dance version of Edward Scissorhands, which has toured more or less constantly since opening in 2006. But in person the whirlwind is remarkably unruffled.

He’s a tall, quietly spoken 48-year-old with a lean, unlined face and small sensitive features. We meet at his office in Sadler’s Wells to discuss his latest project, a ballet based on Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. I ask how he handled the problem of making a portrait grow old on stage. ‘I’ve kind of ignored that. I’ve set it in contemporary times and the character is an advertising icon you see everywhere. It’s a repeated image rather than a single portrait. The show is more about the corruption that happens through becoming a celebrity. We all want to know that person, and the world opens up to them through that.’

Is there any of himself in Dorian? ‘Not really.’ He gives a chuckle. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. That I know of. You can draw on certain things but the fame of a choreographer isn’t the fame of a movie star or a pop star. People don’t recognise me.’ He has deliberately chosen anonymity and turned down the chance to join the panel of judges on Strictly Come Dancing. ‘I’m not interested in being a celebrity.