flammable

Instead of going to the cigarette factory last night, I visited a greasy garage-diner. It was all small time America, with writhing passions and two-bit dreams, until the arrival of another new person in town.

Then we saw duplicity in the heat and desire of the alleys around the car body shop, with greed, lust, betrayal and revenge.

This was Matthew Bourne's 'The Car Man' (he of the ballet scenes at the end of Billy Elliott). The music was Bizet, the moves and story line had been adapted to suit the revised setting and excellent staging for a spell-binding two hours.

From the opening scene with the the frustrated wife of the garage owner smoking a cigarette under a sign that says 'Man Wanted', through the point where the backpacking drifter shows up, we can see there's the setup for some mayhem. The plot moves fast driven by Bizet's music.

There's a whole lot of complications in the love triangle, better explained by seeing who emerges with whom from a car at one point in the action. Let's just say that a poor unsuspecting person gets compromised and then takes the rap for the bloody demise of the garage owner.

There's powerful and graphic choreography with mixes of intense physical dance as well as a fair share of humour both in the dance and in the way the accompanying score is used. By the second half, the whole pot is brought nicely to the boil. From 'le beat route' club where scenes of spending and drunkenness show the nearest to remorse following the first half's murder, we are then transported to the prison of the framed convict.

In slightly more than a single bound, the hapless prisoner, perhaps smarting from some of the treatment he received in the prison, now decides to return to the town to put matters right. But even that has its twists, and the town called Harmony has its own way of dealing with things, too.

A great evening; the show is touring and it was the last night in its current venue.

great excerpt here