Interview: Why Wilde's timeless tale is still bang up to date
I have to ask. It's a cheap question, and frankly a little sycophantic, but I have to ask.
"Do you have a painting in the attic that looks a little withered?"
There is a modest puzzled look on Matthew Bourne's face. It's just that, as a 49-year-old, he looks ridiculously youthful, and given that we've spent an hour discussing Dorian Gray, it seems a fairly natural question to ask.
Matthew Bourne laughs and says: "It depends what day you catch me on. Some days I feel like the painting!"
At 49, Bourne has achieved a lifetime's worth of work and a huge amount of accolades for his achievements.
Bourne is widely hailed as the UK's most popular and successful choreographer/ director.
He is the creator of the world's longest running ballet production, a five-time Olivier Award winner, and the only British director to have won the Tony Award for both Best Choreographer and Best Director of a Musical.
Last year he was asked to premiere his new production, Dorian Gray, at the Edinburgh Festival.
The show, expectedly, was a success – it was awarded the Edinburgh Festival Herald Angel Award for Excellence at the 2008 Festival – and, as a result, is out on the road again this year.
The dance piece comes to Bradford's Alhambra Theatre next week, having played two venues in the south of England. Last week it was in Italy and after the run in Bradford – the north of England premiere – it will go on to play at Sadlers Wells and then Moscow, before returning to Yorkshire to play at Sheffield in the Autumn.
When I ask about the overwhelmingly positive reviews when Dorian Gray premiered, Bourne is surprisingly honest.
"They weren't all positive," he states simply.
I tell him that the reviews I saw praised the production.
"Well, that's good, but really, a number of the national newspapers weren't all that impressed. A lot of the reviews were quite mixed. I try not to read them, but you do hear about what people have written,"
he says.
That he is quite happy to list the negative reviews is evidence that Bourne understands how he is viewed by the dance world – and that he isn't too worried about critical opinion.
"There are people in the dance world who think my work is overly popular because the work is as popular as the dance world ever gets," says Bourne.
"But at the same time, in the world of commercial theatre, when you put my work against big popular musicals I'm as unique and maverick as it gets.
"The issue seems to be for dance people there's not enough dance – or what they consider dance – in the work, but then for people who might not see dance shows regularly, it is the best piece of dance theatre they've ever seen."
If Bourne sounds arrogant, well, firstly he isn't, he's merely stating a fact. But even if you think there is some arrogance in this last statement, he's earned the right to say it.
Having trained as a dancer late in life, he danced for 14 years before giving his final performance in a production of Swan Lake on Broadway
in 1999.
While working as a dancer, he also set up his own company, Adventures in Motion Pictures, which earned a reputation as the country's most innovative dance theatre company. The company's all-male Swan Lake features in the movie Billy Elliott, but it also won plaudits for productions including Nutcracker and Highland Fling.
In 2005 Bourne scored a major hit with a production which also came to Bradford, Edward Scissorhands, which went on to tour the world.
Today Bourne is readying himself to fly out to Italy to accompany the tour of Dorian Gray – he travels everywhere with his productions, saying: "Why would I not travel around? Meeting the audiences we have in places like Bradford is not just important – it's also a lot of fun."
He'll be back in Bradford next week with Dorian Gray, the dance piece based on the novel by Oscar Wilde.
Bourne says: "I always loved the book. I remember reading it when I was 18 and being absolutely intrigued.
"It's been a long time since I created a new piece and I was looking around for material.
" When Edinburgh said they would like a new piece, I had to start thinking about what I could do.
"When I went back to the story, I looked at the themes and was amazed at how much they reflected modern society and our obsession with fame and youth. The book for me is about how powerful and how valued by society youth is. It looks at the idea of someone becoming famous because of their looks.
"Going back to the book it was extraordinary to see how relevant to today's society Wilde's story still is."
Moving the story into contemporary society, Bourne's telling of Dorian Gray set the scene in the world of contemporary art and politics.
He also turns the eponymous character into the ultimate It Boy – an icon of beauty and truth in an increasingly ugly world.
Instead of a portrait, Dorian's beauty is immortalised in an ad campaign and he becomes the talk of the town, his image posted everywhere on giant billboards.
Basil (the portrait painter in Wilde's story) becomes an iconic photographer, similar to Annie Leibovitz.
Set between a London loft apartment, a studio, club and The Royal Opera House, this is his first new production in three years.
Despite the mixed reviews that Bourne draws attention to, it is another hit he and his company have notched up.
"There is a lot of debate about what I do – if it belongs in the dance world or if it's too commercial or popular," says Bourne.
"I just want to entertain people. I do that by telling stories through dance and movement on stage and as long as people are entertained, I will keep making the work."
Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray is at Bradford Alhambra, June 30 to July 4.
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