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The Car Man
Jun. 11th, 2022 08:39 pmYesterday we went up to London to see a production of Matthew Bourne's The Car Man at the Royal Albert Hall. It's a very limited production, only 14 performances in total, and initially I hadn't planned to go, the cost of the tickets putting me off. But then I decided that we were unlikely to go to anything else this summer, so I would splash out and buy tickets with a reasonable view.
I am so glad we did. I've seen the production once before, at Sadler's Wells, but this stage is bigger, which meant they almost doubled the cast, as well as having a larger orchestra. They also made use of screens to show some of the expressions of the main characters, although the excellence of the dancers meant that their body language conveyed what was going on really well. And the use of screens was very limited, so it didn't detract from the dance. One particular highlight was showing the car race by projecting a moving road onto the main aisle, which was used by the dancers at times during the performance.
The four main characters are duplicated, so alternate performances have different principals. We saw Zizi Strallen (Lana), Kayla Collymore (Rita), Will Bozier (Luca) and Paris Fizpatrick (Angelo), which pleased me greatly, because they are all dancers I like. They were brilliant, as were the rest of the cast. Full of energy and emotion, there was very little time to breathe.
There are still seats available - the Royal Albert Hall is a big place to fill - so I'd recommend going. It's being performed as part of the 150 year celebrations for the RAH.
I am so glad we did. I've seen the production once before, at Sadler's Wells, but this stage is bigger, which meant they almost doubled the cast, as well as having a larger orchestra. They also made use of screens to show some of the expressions of the main characters, although the excellence of the dancers meant that their body language conveyed what was going on really well. And the use of screens was very limited, so it didn't detract from the dance. One particular highlight was showing the car race by projecting a moving road onto the main aisle, which was used by the dancers at times during the performance.
The four main characters are duplicated, so alternate performances have different principals. We saw Zizi Strallen (Lana), Kayla Collymore (Rita), Will Bozier (Luca) and Paris Fizpatrick (Angelo), which pleased me greatly, because they are all dancers I like. They were brilliant, as were the rest of the cast. Full of energy and emotion, there was very little time to breathe.
There are still seats available - the Royal Albert Hall is a big place to fill - so I'd recommend going. It's being performed as part of the 150 year celebrations for the RAH.
