The Car Man

Welcome to Harmony, population 375, where the garage is already at work. Cars stand with their engine bays open; angle grinders and welding send sparks flying across the stage, beneath a billboard-sized sunset. Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man transplants the music and sexual charge of Bizet’s Carmen to a 1950s American garage-diner. The tableau soon falls into unapologetic motion, twisting violins cut from opera's gloss across the dirty scene as the mechanics move into a homoerotic locker-room sequence that sets the tone for what's to follow.

No space is unused. Light comes from the cars, petrol pumps, neon signs and even the festoons above the diner. The ensemble dances with time as much as with each other, the tempo carrying us from the day’s work into the night’s revelry. Bizet’s famous Habanera introduces Will Bozier as the slick-haired Luca, who remains central while giving generously to the ensemble around him. The score, meanwhile, is spread around the auditorium, its instrumental lines arriving from different directions. While the recorded score cannot quite make up for the absent orchestra, the production's sound design does give the music a welcome breadth.

Leonardo McCorkindale’s curly-haired Angelo is quiet at the back until he comes into his own in a graceful, tender duet with Anna-Maria de Freitas’s Rita. Their movement slows the evening, shifting into something more contemplative. Elsewhere, the ensemble takes on an animal quality, slow and cautious, watching like vultures. Cordelia Braithwaite’s Lana is an unapologetic femme fatale, dancing from man to man to draw Luca’s attention back to her. When she tears open her dress to implicate Angelo, the movement is so swift that its duplicity only registers a beat later. The stage combat is handled with the same physical precision, indeed absurdly well for a ballet troupe.

After the interval, the garage gives way to a cabaret bar, clearing away the oil for leather, sequins and a touch of Parisian mime. For the first time, the visual world gets a little muddy: the ten-gallon hats and the mime sit awkwardly together. But this is also part of the production's brazen spirit, which refuses to shy away from excess, whether that be sexual violence and debauchery or the grotesque appearance of a zombified garage owner. It takes us round and round and round and is a joy to be led.

The Car Man by New Adventures. Credit Johan Persson.