matthew bourne.qxp_Layout 1 22/10/2021 17:41 Page 2
Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell (above); Bryony Wood and Paris Fitzpatrick (right); photographs by Johan Persson
❝
Wordless theatre is basic storytelling, really; we can all connect with it, we all understand wordless language whether we know it or not
❝
everybody’s situation was as good as mine – where I live is a nice place to be, but if you were in a single room somewhere, it was terrible. And my company are basically all freelancers, so lockdown certainly wasn’t great for them; I was more concerned for them than I was for me. I was actually quite pleased to have a rest, even though I don’t do new pieces very regularly – maybe every two or three years, sometimes longer. I need a lot of time with a piece, and I need to keep working on it once it’s in front of an audience – that’s the beginning of a second journey for me, and it happens quite slowly.” So, regardless of the impact of lockdown, The Midnight Bell has, it seems, been waiting to ring for quite a while. “It’s a very devised piece – there’s no beginning/middle/end,” Matthew explains, still carefully choreographing his way around spoilers. “My big fear was that it’d be difficult to follow, with too many characters and too many stories going on. But when we first did it, nobody had a problem with that at all, it was quite clear. That’s a great relief to me, because I always want to be as clear as possible in a wordless media. But wordless theatre is basic storytelling, really; we can all connect
with it, we all understand wordless language whether we know it or not. And you certainly don’t have to ‘understand’ dance – whatever that means! – to get drawn in to The Midnight Bell; just come along, you don’t need any prior knowledge.” So there we have it: The Midnight Bell, no spoilers... and so, we shimmy back to Bourne-centric world again, for a bit of end-of-chat fun: who is Matthew Bourne, in three words? “Oh goodness! Well, I’d say questioning; I always, always question everything. And lazy! Everyone thinks I’m a workaholic, so that’s a funny juxtaposition, isn’t it? But I’m not very prolific with the amount of new pieces I put out there. Maybe that’s linked to my next word: I’m cautious, in some ways, but I’d like to think I’m a good collaborator. Oh, this is so hard, talking about myself!” But oh, Sir Matthew Bourne: your magical world of wordless media speaks volumes on your behalf. n The Midnight Bell, Theatre Royal Bath, 23–27 November theatreroyal.org.uk THEBATHMAG.CO.UK | november 2021
|
TheBATHmagazine 23
