Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!
Wales Millennium Centre

Tues 15 Nov

Nutcracker has been a Christmas favourite for many for the beautiful Tchaikovsky’s score full of wonderful tunes and its timeless storyline.  In this instance, Clara, a young girl on the brink of womanhood is transported for one last childhood adventure to the world of sweeties.

Mr Bourne once again has a sure-fire hit on his hands with a new original production which has benefitted from a complete transportation from a Russian party to a drab Dickensian orphanage, it’s Christmas Eve in the workhouse and the hungry and mistreated children have to make their own toys out of sticks and string. The set and lightning is used to full effect to show the mean owners spoilt kids generally victimizing the other children. The cast is superb and you feel genuinely drawn into Bourne’s macabre world. Think Tim Burton on acid.

The choreographer is at its most inventive, throughout the first half there is a palatable sense of foreboding which reveals itself in the second half and unfolds in a cacophony of truly mesmerizing theatre.

The first act alone is worth the trip, and the rapturous applaud endorsed it.  This is a spectacle for all the senses. Wonderful.