The Red Shoes review, Sadler’s Wells – Matthew Bourne conjures the impassioned, hothouse world of ballet

Dancer Ashley Shaw shows the burning intensity of the heroine’s ambition - (Johan Persson)

Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes is a swirl of colour and intensity. Adapted from the 1948 film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this stage version wonderfully conjures its 1940s world of ambition and obsession.

Bourne, Britain’s most successful choreographer, has always loved film – his very first company was called Adventures in Motion Pictures. Created in 2016 for his New Adventures company, this Olivier award-winning production is no step-by-step replay of the film but it is steeped in its source material. Bourne confidently reshapes the material for the stage, opening out scenes and tweaking plotlines, but his boldest changes feel cut from the same cloth.