'Imaginative, vibrant and oh-so-saucy,' Missy Lorelei reviews Scottish Ballet's latest.
Jings! Imagine Alex Salmond with a cupboard full of hallucinogens and you are almost halfway to picturing Matthew Bourne's outrageous romping collaboration with Scottish Ballet.
Lez Brotherston's uber-kitsch set pretty much sums up this fun take on La Sylphide, skewering Scottish stereotypes, two loos where a stag and hen party collide, one baby blue, one sugary pink, but as filthy as they are fairytale-esque, open the story. Stewart tartan festoons each corner and costume. Even the forest glade is an urban Weegie wasteland.
James, danced with equal parts swagger and tenderness by Cristopher Harrison, is a feckless unemployed welder betrothed to insipid Effie (Luciana Ravizzi). He is a macho lad in a kilt who would rather screw around and pop pills. Unfortunately, a love rectangle ensues, with Gurn (an expressive Jamiel Lawrence) after Effie and Diane Loosmore's provocative Madge (sticking out her bum and breasts at every occasion) all over the reluctant groom-to-be like a suit from Slater's.
Then, as if this were not enough romantic complication, Sophie Martin's minxy gothic Sylph keeps popping up to tempt James into submission with a habit of groping him from atop buildings and through holes in the walls, dressed like a Victorian Bjork. A pas de deux between the two follows, seductive and playful, a mating ritual as they mirror each other.
The ensemble work of the wedding party is glorious, blending pointe work and traditional grand chain and paddy ba from Highland dancing, but there's a cheeky infusion of modern bump and grind and krumping too.
As James is lured away from Effie into the land of Les Sylphides, the dancing takes a darker tone, more graceful zombie than fairy, with jagged limb work, sighs and fluttering sensuality. Even the owls are voyeurs. It doesn't end happily for the twosome, suffice to say.
Imaginative, vibrant and oh-so-saucy, this fling is not one with any real emotional attachment, but a fun ride while it lasts.
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