Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a Matthew Bourne show filling the stage of Sadler’s Wells. Edward Scissorhands is a particularly good fit not only for the snow that drifts down from the rafters, but also for the tenderly presented message nestled in its heart about difference and acceptance.
It’s a production, cleverly adapted by Caroline Thompson from the 1990 Tim Burton film, that turns the boy with flashing blades for hands into a symbol for all outsiders – and Peg Boggs, the kindly housewife, who sees his loneliness and offers him a home full of love, into the kind of Good Samaritan society needs.
Bourne does all this with dance of sharp comic precision that raises a smile even as it touches the heart. It is never sentimental, but waltzes along the edge of feeling. First seen in 2005, and last revived in 2014, Scissorhands feels more vital than ever.
Part of its joy lies in Lez Brotherston’s colourful designs that jauntily create the town of Hope Springs in a vista of cutout houses, neatly arranged. Out of their front doors come a carefully observed community: the neighbours warming up for their runs; the lothario practising his golf swing; the kids swaggering on their way to camp. Bourne finds steps for them all, from the pill-popping mum and the tigerish seductress to the family of gay dads.
The group dances, rich in style and rhythm, are never just for their own sake. Each one – the going to school routine, the welcome barbecue, the final, disastrous Christmas celebration – also drives forward the narrative, as Edward moves from curiosity to sensation to scapegoat. The storytelling is rigorously clear yet seems to spring from the movement.
Terry Davies’s score, based on themes by Danny Elfman and sumptuously played by the New Adventures orchestra conducted by Brett Morris, sets the changing moods: the exuberance of the scene where Edward shapes the town’s hair into wild creations is balanced by the rising tension of the party at which his jealous nemesis, Jim, gets him drunk.
But Scissorhands is also a love story, and as Edward falls for Kim Boggs, daughter of Peg, they are given two soaring duets in which to express their emotion – one a fantasy sequence surrounded by dancing topiary where Edward has hands; the other after he has sculpted an ice angel, where Bourne’s inventive choreography lets him lift her over his shoulders without ever touching her with his dangerous blades.
As Edward, Liam Mower brings to these scenes suppressed tenderness; his happiness when Kim kisses him seems to spread through his whole body. He turns Scissorhands into a growing individual, warily learning from those around him – the moment when he leans towards Peg as she wipes his face is extraordinarily touching – but always innocent.
Katrina Lyndon is a lyrical Kim, her confidence growing as she realises her boyfriend, Jim (Ben Brown, all testosterone and anger), is not the man she imagined. Around them, the New Adventures dancers create an entirely believable world, with Kerry Biggin and Dominic North (who once played Edward and Kim) beautifully detailed storytellers as Peg and Bill Boggs. It is an utter treat.
Edward Scissorhands is at Sadler’s Wells, London, until 20 January, then tours until 25 May
