Matthew Bourne

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a choreographer. His work crosses the boundary between high art and popular culture. He's equally at home with Swan Lake or My Fair Lady, The Nutcracker, or Oliver. Equally successful, too. He's won Olivier Awards and Tony's for both. Hardly surprising, then, to learn that the man whose education in a rough London comprehensive gave little encouragement to his artistic ambitions has, as his two main influences, Sir Frederick Ashton and Fred Astaire. The two Freds have been looking over his shoulder throughout his controversial career so far, watching the man whom some have described as a destructive influence on old masterpieces, others as the natural heir to the leadership of dance in Britain. If I have a fault, he says, it's that I want to please everyone. He is Matthew Bourne. So you're an audience man, then, are you, Matthew? You don't believe in art for art's sake.

Matthew Bourne1:23

No, I li I I put the audience first at all times, I think. I it's easy to make work that pleases yourself, and I think a lot of people do do that. And it's what's good is if you can do both, if you can please yourself and use your your loves and your passions and share them with other people. And I've I've always felt that I could do that, and I think it's the storytelling maybe that's the key to that.

Presenter1:40

I think it's

Presenter1:43

Exactly. So you don't want

Presenter1:45

a a ballet dancer to leap into the air, to do a tour enlaire for its own sake, it's got to have some narrative purpose.

Matthew Bourne1:53

Yes, absolutely. Everything I do now relates to story and character and emotion. So a tour en lair, as you say, which is a turn in the air, I would never just put it in for the sake of having it there to impress, because it's a s it's a technical thing. And technical things to me are fun and I do enjoy watching them, but they're not what I'm about.

Presenter2:09

Huh.

Presenter2:15

So it comes from the heart what you do. And the interesting thing is, as a choreographer, you don't read music, do you?

Matthew Bourne2:22

That's un

Presenter2:22

That's unusual.

Matthew Bourne2:24

Completely untrained musically. And it's an interesting story to tell about this, because I got this commission to make Nutcracker. I was working with a conductor called David Lloyd Jones, who's a a Tchaikovsky expert. And he walked into the rehearsal room one day, and I was

Presenter2:24

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne2:37

Counting the music as I hear it, not as a musician would count it. And I was rather embarrassed. And he said, No, you're absolutely right. What you're doing is hearing the music as the public hear it. You're responding to the feeling in the music. You said, You're probably absolutely right to respond to it in this way. And I thought, he he was right, I agree. It gave me license to think, well, yes, what I've I can do is to respond to it in an emotional way.

Presenter2:56

It gave me license to think

Presenter3:04

And feel the story. As you say, you feel the steps, you hear the music, you feel the steps, and you start telling the story through movement, which of course is what you did when you did Swan Lake. That was the one that really put you on the map, wasn't it, in nineteen ninety five. And what you did with that was you kind of

Speaker 43:14

Yeah.

Presenter3:19

Well, you turned all the swans into men. They're all male, aren't they? And the central characters were the you know, the prince was falling in love with a male swan.

Matthew Bourne3:22

That's right.

Presenter3:26

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne3:26

Yeah.

Presenter3:27

Why do you do that? Just to sort of shake people up?

Presenter3:30

Two.

Matthew Bourne3:30

But I found

Presenter3:30

Oh.

Matthew Bourne3:30

Through watching the classical version, that we were ceasing to hear or see after a while, because you've got the same images with the same music, and it's kind of has a dulling effect after a while, unless you get an amazing performance at the centre of it that wakes you up a bit. I thought if I could make people listen to the music again by putting it to different images, and I particularly the music from Act Four of Swan Lake, I found is so full of violence, even. It's not a word you associate with ballet, but violence and passion and all this emotion. I thought if I could capture that and bring that to this amazing music, we would have something that would wake people up a bit. And this was really my guiding light in making the piece, this final music from Act Four.

Presenter5:18

End of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake from my Costaway soundtrack, played by the new London orchestra conducted by David Lloyd Jones. And your your male swans at that moment have become incredibly violent. They're hissing. They're they they actually e eat the swan, don't you?

Matthew Bourne5:32

Yeah, they devour their leader because of this supposed maybe unnatural relationship he's had with the prince. And I I think there's a it really touches people.

Presenter5:42

But it's an image that was informed, I think, by Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, wasn't it? A bit?

Matthew Bourne5:47

The image in the birds that we used for this piece, which is one of the strongest p parts of the film, is when Tibby Hedron, as the heroine, is sitting on a sort of park bench and there's a climbing frame behind her. And there's one bird sort of flutters down onto the frame, and behind her she suddenly sees that this one bird has turned into two hundred birds who are all looking at her, waiting to attack. And we do this image in the sh in the piece where the swans gather on the enormous bed, Prince's bed. For those people who haven't seen it, it sounds very strange, I'm sure, but they'll have the chance to see it at Sedlas Wells this Christmas.

Speaker 25:57

Hmm.

Presenter6:21

But I'm interested in that um cinematic influence because I mean uh you mentioned Hitchcock, but Fred Astair, let's go back to Fred's I was mentioning in the introduction, Fred Astaire. Now he cinematically is someone who influenced you, isn't he?

Matthew Bourne6:28

Actor Fred

Matthew Bourne6:34

Well Fred Astaire's been my lifelong idol and I realized that the thing I've definitely got from Fred is this ease into which he goes into a number. Walking can suddenly become a number. The walk is a dance already. He can suddenly turn that into something where he's playing around with things in a room, picks something up that happens to be on the table, dances over the furniture, uses whatever's there. I've used that I think time and time again because I'm aware that there's an enormous section of the public who find dance quite frightening, a scary thing, think they feel they need to have a lot of prior knowledge to understand it, which is rubbish. I've found a way of easing people into watching full-length dance pieces and them not quite realizing that's what they're watching and I think that comes from Fred.

Presenter7:16

Being a nice

Presenter7:18

You met him once, didn't you?

Matthew Bourne7:19

I did well, I s I stalked him, I should say. When I was about fifteen, fourteen, fifteen, I had heard he was in London, and I found out where he was staying at the Connaught Hotel, and I just waited outside for him to come. This has been my days of autograph collecting.

Presenter7:35

I can say you stalked a lot of people. I did.

Matthew Bourne7:36

I did stalk many, many people at that time. I got on the thirty eight bus from Walthamstow to the West End most nights of the week after school, to first nights during the week, hotels and stage doors at the weekends.

Presenter7:50

Again, it's quite an obsessive business, isn't it? You were obsessive then about it.

Matthew Bourne7:52

Didn't let you

Matthew Bourne7:55

I've always had obsessions, yeah. That was my obsession then. I certainly haven't done it for many years.

Presenter8:00

But the idea that you would

Presenter8:02

Across, you know, from being one of those people who stood and stared to actually being somebody who performed it in the first instance and then went on to produce it. And that's amazing.

Matthew Bourne8:10

Well that's the incredible thing because I I I was so aimless in a way in my early years because I didn't really know what it was in this world that I loved, the world of theatre and cinema, that I could do. I had no idea. I thought maybe I should act or maybe I should direct. I even thought of being a a casting agent at one point because I knew so much about actors and actresses. I had no idea what to do at that time.

Presenter8:33

Let's pause there for the second record. What is it?

Matthew Bourne8:35

Ah well the second record is something I I just have to have in here because it so much influenced me as a child. It's my abiding love Julie Andrews singing The Sound of Music and it was the first film I saw at the age of five. It was my fifth birthday. I was taken to the Dominion Tottenham Road to see the sound of music, sat very near the front and the image of Julie Andrews coming over the hill at the beginning is something that has stayed with me forever. I don't think I've ever been the same since, having seen this image. It was so overwhelming to me in 70mm screen and uh the music, the build-up to her appearance. I fell in love with it.

Speaker 49:14

A hill alive with the sound of music.

Speaker 49:21

With songs they have sung for a thousand years The hills fill my heart with the sound of music

Speaker 49:37

My heart wants to sing every song it hears.

Presenter9:43

Hills are alive from the sound of music motion picture soundtrack sung by Julie Andrews and seen by my Costaway Matthew Bourne when he was five years old fifth birthday, nineteen sixty five and it moves you still, I can tell.

Matthew Bourne9:55

It does.

Presenter9:56

But you were in love. I mean, you used to kiss her, didn't you?

Matthew Bourne10:00

I used to where did you get that story from? I used to kiss the album cover before I went to bed. I was so in love with Julia Andrews at the time. There was this full-length picture of her at the back and I remember when I was young I used to think that music could cure you. And I don't mean just make you feel better, which music does. I mean I'm sure everyone feels that way about music. But I actually felt when I was young that it could actually make you better if you were ill. And this is one of the ones that I would have definitely put on if I had a

Matthew Bourne10:26

If I had the measles or something. But um

Presenter10:28

This was back in Walthamstow, where you were born and bred. Your dad worked for the Water Board, your mum was a secretary, and you, from that very early age, I think, used to put on shows for the family, didn't you? What kind of thing?

Matthew Bourne10:30

Yeah,

Matthew Bourne10:40

Yes, I used to put on sort of song and dance shows. I w I would choreograph numbers and and sing and dance, and I wouldn't have called it choreography then, I would have called it doing a number or I'm put you know it it was all to means to an end, for to perform really.

Presenter10:53

But who performed in it? I mean, to get friends or?

Matthew Bourne10:56

Um kids who live down the street, people who live next door. We used to make a little stage in one of the bedrooms, invite people from the street to come and see the show. Um this is when I was very young. Used to charge people as well. They used to get a free cup of tea and biscuit if they came.

Presenter11:11

But you performed yourself as well.

Matthew Bourne11:13

Yes, always, yes. Always. Loved performing. Always the star. Ah, really.

Presenter11:14

Always. Loved performing. Always the star. Ah, really. What about your brother? What happened to him? Oh, my brother.

Matthew Bourne11:19

Oh, my brother my brother was always my female partner for some reason. I was always Freddista, he was Ginger Rogers, or he was we ju used to do Peters and Lee, and I remember him doing Ethel Merman and all these things. I

Presenter11:27

Whitties

Matthew Bourne11:33

He loved it at the time.

Presenter11:34

So, I mean, you you must have cut a slightly odd figure because these were quite sort of retro tastes for a boy brought up in what the sixties, seventies and and and part of that was uh I think also meant that you didn't actually get on very well at school, did you? You

Presenter11:49

Not really.

Matthew Bourne11:49

Not really.

Presenter11:50

You you weren't a fit.

Matthew Bourne11:51

No, it was a quite a rough comprehensive school and I didn't feel that it had anything to teach me. I I it wasn't until I left school really that I started to read and listen and see things I'd never seen before, try things, try opera, try ballet, try reading a novel by Jane Austen or something. Oh, I've never done that, I should do it. I started to do that after I left school.

Presenter12:15

So it's a kind of process of self-education, really, that you embarked on?

Matthew Bourne12:18

That's what I felt it was like, yeah. And I I still do that to a certain extent now.

Presenter12:24

Code number three.

Matthew Bourne12:25

The third choice is again someone who had to be there, Ella Fitzgerald. I could have chosen hundreds and hundreds of Ella tracks, but I've chosen Night and Day by Cole Porter, partly because of the Fred Astaire Association. It was a song he introduced originally and I didn't have him on my list, so I had to get him in somehow. And the other reason, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, all those writers of that time, Rogers and Hart, have always been great loves of mine. So this is there to represent that as well.

Speaker 413:00

You are the one.

Speaker 413:04

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun

Speaker 413:12

Whether near to me or far It's no matter, darling, where you are I think of

Presenter13:23

Ella Fitzgerald and Night and Day.

Presenter13:26

The process of self-education then, Matthew Bourne, goes on and eventually you go to a chorus line when you're sixteen years old, I think. That was an important moment for you, wasn't it?

Matthew Bourne13:33

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne13:36

It was very important to me. I saw the show eleven times. There were people talking very honestly about themselves and I think it had a a big effect on me and made me do the same. Made me look at myself and who am I and uh there were sexuality issues, there were all sorts of family things and it made you think who do I want to be? And it it was very significant for me in that way and I think that's why I kept going back.

Presenter13:55

Many

Presenter13:59

And did it also

Presenter14:01

In in all of these things that you saw, did dance rise to the top for you, or was it the music first? What was when did dance begin to be your thing?

Matthew Bourne14:11

Well, dance it's strangely I would have said at that time that I loved musicals in general and plays and films and what I realized after a while that the reason I went back to see things again again was to see the numbers, to see the in a musical, and it was the dancing that really had an effect on me.

Presenter14:26

You realized that was what was turning you on.

Presenter14:28

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne14:32

Movement became the language that obviously thrilled me and that I had to see it again and again.

Presenter14:37

But she still hadn't done ballet in this stage. You'd never seen a ballet. No. So when did you see your first ballet?

Matthew Bourne14:38

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne14:41

No.

Matthew Bourne14:43

Well, I saw my first Bally when I was about nineteen, uh quite late really. It was Swan Lake at the Opera House and Suddler's Worlds. Within two weeks of each other I saw two different productions of Swan Lake. So it hit the spot.

Presenter14:54

So it hit the spot.

Presenter14:56

Did it it you recognize something

Matthew Bourne14:57

It hit the spot in a way an unexpected way. It made me want to see, again, the obsession coming about everything. And from that point onwards, I saw every dance company that came to Britain. I saw I was the da uh dance productions two or three times a week.

Presenter15:13

Mm. So you're

Presenter15:15

We can hear broadening your cultural references. But sound of music's still hanging in there. But now we're into Frederick Ashton at the other end and kind of Lafayette Malgade or whatever. You s all of a sudden you're taking it all in. Yes. But you're still in the audience.

Matthew Bourne15:19

Oh yeah, still hanging out.

Speaker 415:21

Uh

Presenter15:30

How, how and when did you decide to cross the line, as it were, and get into production, performance, whichever it was going to be?

Speaker 415:30

Yeah.

Presenter15:37

Uh

Matthew Bourne15:38

Well, I

Matthew Bourne15:39

Again, I was still doing the amateur theatrics, but didn't see a way in for myself. Going back a little bit, I thought I wanted to act, maybe. That was the answer. I tried that when I was fifteen, hated it, didn't like using my voice. So I thought, well, well, that doesn't work. So gradually this thing about dance became the thing that was more important to me. And I was after I left school, I tried various jobs. So I actually worked at the BBC for a while, Broadcasting House. I went on to jobs like Keith Prouse Theatre Agent, so I could see all the shows. Ended up at the National Theatre as an usher and bookshop.

Presenter16:12

So you're in the area then. I mean, you're dealing with artistes, as they say.

Matthew Bourne16:14

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne16:15

That's how you say. close by, but not really in there, you know, I uh once removed in a way. I met a guy at the National Theatre who was also an usher, who was studying to be a dancer at The Place, which is a contemporary dance college in London.

Presenter16:18

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne16:31

Talking to him, he the reason he'd got into dance, he was the same age as me, he was around twenty, twenty-one, and he'd done a production of Westside Story locally and just loved it, loved the dance aspect of it. So that's why I'd auditioned for the Larbon Centre, another college in London, contemporary dance college. It was the first audition I'd ever done. It was the first time I'd ever done a ballet class or a contemporary dance.

Presenter16:53

How could you audition if you couldn't dance?

Matthew Bourne16:55

Well, I just copied what was given. You know, it's at that time, I suppose it's quite naive.

Presenter16:59

But that's quite naive.

Matthew Bourne17:03

Well, I've always felt I've always felt there's several reasons. One was they're desperate for boys, and the other thing was I think they were impressed in my interview at how much I'd seen and read already, because it was an academic course as well, it was a degree course. So they I think that's why they took me.

Presenter17:19

You were twenty two.

Matthew Bourne17:20

twenty two

Presenter17:22

Record number four.

Matthew Bourne17:23

Record number four is from Brokofiev's Cinderella, it's the waltz Cinderella Leaves for the Ball. On one level it's full of promise and optimism and excitement of this thing of going to the ball, but underlying it there's this darkness and mystery, which is something that only Brokofieff can do, I think, and put those two things together and achieve both at the same time.

Presenter18:45

Cinderella waltz from Kofiev's Cinderella Ballet, played by the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mihail Plitneff. Um of course your Cinderella was set in the Blitz. I think Prince Charming was an airline pilot. Cinders was kind of bespectacled and a blue stocking and the fairy godmother was a man.

Speaker 419:02

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne19:02

That's right.

Speaker 419:02

Uh

Presenter19:03

What's the point of it? I mean, doesn't it just destroy a lovely story?

Matthew Bourne19:05

Because

Matthew Bourne19:07

Oh, not at all. It was so heartfelt, this piece. And the reason I did it in that time was that I found out it was written during the Second World War and then was delayed. The premiere was delayed as the war happened. It was eventually premiered in 1946, I think. And as soon as I had that idea, I listened to it again, and it was so much in there.

Matthew Bourne19:28

Cinderella as a character is something that you know everyone can relate to, so you can tell that story as has been proved many times in many different ways.

Presenter19:36

Great success, wasn't it? Particularly in LA, where I think I read that Barbara Streisand clutched you for half an hour backstage or she did.

Matthew Bourne19:43

She did.

Presenter19:43

Jack Nicholson tipped up, David Hockney, I you know, all happened for you on that one.

Matthew Bourne19:48

Yes, we do have the oddest fans out there, like Jack Nicholson, as you say, who never misses a show that I do out there. Always comes back afterwards. Never miss anything you do, buddy.

Presenter19:59

Good stuff. But how did you get from where we left you at that s dance school, as it were, in in South London?

Matthew Bourne20:04

I don't think

Presenter20:06

to being commissioned to do these kinds of things. It seems to me every time one reads about you there's a sort of great gap that people leap across appropriately, I suppose. How did you establish your reputation?

Matthew Bourne20:18

Well, I mean, I was very busy during that time. I I as soon as I left college, I formed my own company along with some of my fellow students. And a couple of the pieces early on got recognition in the, I have to say, very small world of contemporary dance in terms of audience. And I got a reputation as the company that was bringing humour into dance, which was an element of what I did, but it was the thing that was different about what we did.

Presenter20:40

Which was

Presenter20:44

But as you say, it was p put under uh the heading of contemporary dancing. That's the point, isn't it? That you've actually bridged the gulf between the classical and the contemporary. What made that happen?

Matthew Bourne20:44

As you say,

Matthew Bourne20:47

Awesome.

Matthew Bourne20:49

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne20:53

Well, what made that happen I think was was being able to look at pieces that people already felt they knew and loved. The first one being Nutcracker, which was a commission from Opera North in in ninety-one, and doing something with them that made people realize that this was work that could that wasn't just a museum piece, and uh albeit an enjoyable museum piece, but something that could relate to today and to the young people of today.

Presenter21:20

So you wrenched that out of its traditional setting. Where did you put that?

Matthew Bourne21:23

Oh, that's uh My Nutcracker's set in a an orphanage actually. It's um rather than the big family Christmas party, it's set in a a an orphanage where the p the kids are treated quite badly and have broken toys for Christmas and um are treated it it's it's quite sad in a way. Uh funny funny and sad. And that was a good lesson for me in storytelling.

Presenter21:45

Record number five.

Matthew Bourne21:47

Uh record number five is by one of my favorite composers, Percy Granger. He's a sort of mad genius of music, I think. And the piece that I've chosen is an upbeat piece. It's called Intriguing Type of Lord Peter's Stable Boy. I'm not sure what the story behind this is, but it's a it's a lovely piece.

Presenter23:01

Lord Peter's Stable Boy from the Danish Folk Song Suite by Percy Granger, played by the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox.

Presenter23:10

The um other unusual thing about you as a choreographer, Matthew Bourne, is that you involve the dancers in the creative process. You're the kind of Mike Lee of the dancing world, the world of dance. D take, for example, the production you did, The Carman, which is a pastiche of The Carmen Suite. What would you say to your dancers to inspire I mean, how much information do you give them before they come back to you with the kinds of movement that character might have?

Matthew Bourne23:35

Well, I used to think that the role of a choreographer was to stand in front of a mirror and make up all the steps on your own. And I did do that early on. What I do now, and with particularly with the piece you mentioned, The Carman, is to feed the dancers as much information as I can about the piece that we're doing. So they do their own research. They'll watch the films that surround the subject.

Presenter23:58

What films surround that subject are?

Matthew Bourne24:00

Well, our Carman was based on a sort of American Midwest town, one of those sort of hotbeds of intrigue. So Film Noir Films was the main thing. The Postman Wars Rings Twice was one of the main influences for the story and the beginning of the piece about a a woman living with an older husband and a guy who arrives in town who is a drifter and the relationship that they have, the affair that they have, and a murder that ensues. And it was quite gory stuff at times.

Speaker 224:16

Huh.

Matthew Bourne24:32

Once they've got all this information, I have them in the studio, and they can then start feeding me with ideas. Oh, I saw this thing, I thought this was a good idea.

Presenter24:40

So, your job is to edit, is it really, in that sense? You say, well, yes, I like that, but I don't like that. It's not.

Matthew Bourne24:46

Quite as simple as editing, because I do give them a certain amount of movement to do, but I let them build on that. If I just relied on my own body to make the work, it would be quite limited.

Presenter24:55

But do you then write it down? Can you write it down? How would you write it down? If you don't read music, you can't

Matthew Bourne25:00

I do, I have my own form of uh writing it down with my counts and notes, it's my own form of notation.

Presenter25:06

But presumably the best way you can do it is literally on the hoof, sort of moving around it as the music play.

Matthew Bourne25:09

I'm losing it now.

Matthew Bourne25:11

Yeah, you can't beat it to actually the the inspiration that you feel together in the studio is the important thing. I've found that when people are asked for their opinion, they get so into it, they're so excited by it, and it i they own it.

Presenter25:25

More music.

Matthew Bourne25:26

The next choice is well it's my only contemporary choice actually. It's a a singer-songwriter that I've fallen in love with recently, Rufus Wainwright. He's comes from a strange mixture. He's got famous parents in folk music, Loudoun Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigal, I think is his mother. And this particular song that I've chosen is called Dinner at Eight, from his latest album. And it's about when his father walked out on them when he was a young boy.

Speaker 425:55

No, Daddy don't be surprised If I wanna see the tears in your eyes Then I know it had to be

Speaker 426:13

Grong.

Matthew Bourne26:14

And

Speaker 426:20

Sure.

Presenter26:23

Rufus Wainwright and Dinner at Eight. You didn't make much money in the beginning, Matthew, out of all of this work, but in the end it happened. Is it the big shows? Is it the South Pacifics and and My Fair Lady? And you did both of those, I think, at the the National, didn't you, when they move into the West End? Is is that what brings you the money? Or can the the the balletic pieces on a good day do the trick for you?

Matthew Bourne26:36

Didn't you win that?

Matthew Bourne26:43

They can do now. The musicals are the thing that have and I consider myself very fortunate that I've been able to do that because there are very few choreographers who do really m make a genuine living from being a choreographer. And the musicals are the things that do that for me.

Presenter26:57

And what uh what's your reaction to the critics in the ballet world who inevitably get sniffy about your approach? You know, they as I mentioned at the beginning, they they get very annoyed at your

Matthew Bourne27:03

Do you want to f

Presenter27:08

What they see as your habit of turning these great masterpieces upside down and shaking them or or or suggest really that you're detracting from the purity of classical ballet.

Matthew Bourne27:16

Classic

Matthew Bourne27:18

Well, I don't it's difficult to answer to it. It it's actually very few people. It always makes good reading to say that I'm you know, I've been called the bad boy of ballet and Damien Hurst of ballet and all these things. It's not really true. I'm actually love ballet and I'm I'm trying to be very true to the music. Interesting story is that the our version of Swan Lake, the music that we use is much more authentic than the classical ballet has become because technique over the years has improved so much that people can extend their legs for longer, they can balance for longer, they can do more turns and etc. So the music has been sort of drawn out to include all this stuff. So it's actually played at a sort of funereal pace now, which it was never intended to be. So when we first looked at it we came back to how should this be? And so our conductors were saying well this is how it's written and that's what I choreographed to. So it's actually I'd like to say more authentic musically than the ballet.

Matthew Bourne28:14

The next choice is Noel Coward, and I've chosen the song London Pride partly because well.

Matthew Bourne28:23

for every reason, because I'm a Londoner and I'm very proud to be a Londoner. I I and I love the city and I've made many works about the city. All the musicals I've done, Oliver, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, all set in London, My Cinderella Was, My Swan Lake is really. So I I make work about London and I'm very proud to be a Londoner.

Speaker 228:42

London Pride has been handed down to us. London Pride is a flower that's free. London Pride means our own dear town to us. And our Pride it forever will be. Oh, Liza, see the custer barrels, the vegetable marrows, and the fruit pile high. Oh, Liza, little London Sterls, Covent Garden Market, where the custers cry.

Speaker 229:09

Yeah.

Presenter29:09

An old coward and London Pride, which he recorded in nineteen forty one. I called you, Matthew, a a a choreographer at the outset, but I mean, listening to you and looking back across it, you're so many other things as well, aren't you? I mean, you were the performer who became the choreographer and

Presenter29:24

That became a job where you needed to write script, if you like, in terms of creating narrative and you involve in costume and in sets and so on. So you're a director. Which bit of it all gives you greatest pleasure?

Matthew Bourne29:27

Would you like him to

Matthew Bourne29:36

I'm very happy when I do achieve something choreographically that I'm happy with, because it's not actually my strongest point. My strongest point is storytelling through movement without words. And that's what I feel I do, which is very difficult to label what exactly that is. And that's been an ongoing thing through my career, is people don't know what to call me. Oh, he's more of a director, isn't he? Or he's more of this.

Speaker 429:50

Hmm.

Matthew Bourne29:57

I'll employ anything to tell the story, which is why sometimes people think, Well, where's all the big turns and the big jumps and things? And sometimes I just will not even think about that'cause it doesn't seem relevant. So sometimes it's just mime acting uh will come through in the story. I don't know. I think what's happened in the last year or so is that

Matthew Bourne30:15

The critics who've been writing about me have suddenly noticed a trend towards them actually accepting me for what it is I do do rather than what I don't do.

Presenter30:22

Yeah.

Matthew Bourne30:25

Yeah, that's a ni that's a nice term.

Presenter30:27

But to do any of them, you know, for the boy who used to queue for a seat in The Gods and kiss Julie Andrews good night on the records is a huge achievement. I mean, are you still quietly amazed at what you've done?

Matthew Bourne30:40

I've been amazed constantly through at each stage of what I've done because it was so unexpected and came a bit late and all the better for it I think. All the better for having that time where I was just enjoyed what being a fan and I think I'm still a fan and I think that's what makes what I do click with people because I lo I love it so much and I love the the music I use and the influences I use. It's never become a job.

Presenter31:06

Last record.

Matthew Bourne31:07

The last record is Rhapstein Blue by George Gershwin, and I think we've got a recording that's from its premiere in nineteen twenty four, which I think is the probably has the true heart of the piece in it. It's a very witty version.

Presenter32:20

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, played by the Paul Whiteman Jazz Orchestra, and that was recorded in nineteen twenty four, one of its earliest performances. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Matthew, which one would you take?

Matthew Bourne32:31

I think I would take the Ella, Ella Fitzgerald. I think if I could have a few as well it'd be nice. A whole album would be nice. But Ella Fitzgerald I think it'd have to be to calm me, keep me calm.

Presenter32:44

Keep on that one note.

Matthew Bourne32:45

Hmm.

Presenter32:45

And uh your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare.

Matthew Bourne32:49

My book I've chosen was a strange choice, but it's The Kenneth Williams Diaries. I think it's probably because I like that mixture of someone who is on one level very funny and there's a darker side. It's that darker side coming through again there. So that would that would keep me company, I think.

Presenter33:06

and luxury.

Matthew Bourne33:08

My luxury is going to be spotted dick with lions golden syrup on them, which I absolutely adore. And it's something I can't have at the moment because I'm always on diets.'Cause I don't strangely, I'm not as physical as I used to be. Um so I'm always having to watch my weight and it's something I absolutely love and I I miss it. So it wouldn't matter so much if I was there, would it? And what my weight was.

Presenter33:32

Matthew Bourne, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Matthew Bourne33:35

Thank you very much.

Speaker 433:44

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.