Review: Edward Scissorhands, Matthew Bourne's New Adventures ★★★★★

Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands is an allegory told through whimsy, opting to enchant and amuse even while making its serious point. It is thrillingly danced by his New Adventures Company.

A self-confessed film buff, Matthew Bourne closely follows the plot of Tim Burton’s 1990 film, adding a graphic, Frankenstein-inspired and rather gruesome prologue, where the creepy inventor is seen attaching limbs to the unfinished Edward, before bringing him alive with an electrical charge.

As in the film, he dies before finishing the job, leaving Edward with multiple scissors for hands.Thus the lonely boy descends on the all-American small town of Hope Springs.

The ultimate outsider, he elicits a variety of responses, from the kindness of the Boggs family, through the determined voracity of the town’s man-eater, Joyce Monroe, to the instinctive malevolence of the clannish rebel youths, and far too late the love of the town belle, Kim Boggs (a sweet Katrina Lyndon).

Edward’s talent with his scissors creates outlandish topiary in plants, human hairdos and even a hapless poodle, this offering the town an acceptable slot in which to fit him: he briefly becomes the town’s hairdresser, complete with exaggerated Latin moustache.

Liam Mower and company in Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands. Photo: Johan Persson
But the reality is this outsider will never really fit in, and the finale has a sad sense of inevitability about it.

With handsome detailed designs by his usual collaborator Lez Brotherston, brightly lit by Howard Harrison, Bourne creates a cartoonish picture of 1950s Americana, his characters embodying every cliche of the genre, from the men’s battered briefcases to the wives’ frilly aprons.

In this revival a mannered gay couple, complete with baby, is added the 2005 original families, that include a pompous mayor and the fire-and-brimstone-breathing religious fanatics.

Terry Davies’s score, based on Danny Elfman’s original film soundtrack and played live by the New Adventures Orchestra, provides lively music for Bourne’s fast-moving ensembles, much of their dancing inspired by period swing and jitterbug, and reaching a peak in the town’s fateful Christmas ball.

Company of Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands. Photo: Johan Persson
General characterisation is deliberately broad-brush: few characters are more than two-dimensional types, and there isn’t enough plot to fill the work’s two-hour duration, so that some sequences drag a little.

What is not in doubt is the quality of the performances. As Edward Scissorhands on press night Liam Mower was affecting: his outsider’s puzzled frown at everything and everybody around him, his innocent fixation on Kim Boggs, his clumsy attempts to fit in and fleeting delight when he thinks he’s been accepted, all that this remarkable dance actor conveys in an intense interpretation. In the work’s long run Mower alternates in the role with Stephen Murray.

The rest of the 25-strong cast embody their multiple characters with relish; special mention must be made of Nicola Cabera as Joyce Monroe, her blatant attempts at seduction perfectly pitched and very funny.

With Duncan McLean’s video and projection designs adding magic to the whole, particularly in the dreamy snowfall that brings the story to its end, visually Edward Scissorhands is a treat, and though not one of Matthew Bourne’s meatier works, it offers a lively alternative to the usual Christmas fare.

Book here