Full of Jazz era tales of love and connection across a lonely city, Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell is a magnetic and captivating new work. Using Jazz standards lip synched by the dancers interlaced through the production to create narrative as well as commentary, the choreography moves through place and time with a heavy theatricality. The same spaces are used in an overlapping manner (reminiscent of the way Complicite use space) to great effect, creating a sense of togetherness in the loneliness the characters exude.
Beyond the choreography which was stunning, the use of the physical space, indeed transforming our perspective so that we see the same room from multiple angles, and the same activities which were hidden revealed. It is a truly stunning manipulation of perspective to create story of what is hidden, private, versus what is revealed.