New Adventures: tour of Lord of the Flies

Posted on October 3, 2013

Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Re:Bourne, the company’s charitable arm, will tour a new production of Lord of the Flies from April 2014.

The show has its roots in a 2011 collaboration with Glasgow’s Theatre Royal, when Re:Bourne and Glasgow Theatres’ Creative Learning team worked with local boys and young men. In a danced adaptation of William Golding’s novel, a group of schoolboys find themselves abandoned. Without adult supervision, they start to create their own rules, with dark superstitions emerging. In the dance adaptation, Golding’s original setting of a deserted island becomes a deserted theatre.

The production was devised and directed by Bourne, working with several of his long-term collaborators. The choreography is by Scott Ambler, the original Prince in Bourne’s celebrated version of Swan Lake. The designs are by Lez Brotherston, with music by Terry Davies, who also wrote the score for Play Without Words. On tour, the cast will feature New Adventures dancers and young talent chosen from each region.

The tour will open at The Lowry, Salford from April 2 to 5, 2014, and continue until December. Tickets will go on sale soon.

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.