If you have never seen a Matthew Bourne show, this is a good place to start. The Car Man lands at the Congress Theatre from Wednesday 18 to Saturday 21 November, and it is not the kind of dance you might be expecting. Bourne has taken Bizet's Carmen and transplanted it into a 1960s American Mid-West town, swapping the Spanish heat for a greasy garage-diner. The plot follows the arrival of a handsome, enigmatic stranger who turns the town's passions and dreams upside down, and it has been described as a dance thriller that leaves you breathless.
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The music is a big part of the appeal. Terry Davies has built the score around Rodion Shchedrin's Carmen Suite, which itself was written in 1967 for the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and was banned by the Soviet authorities for being disrespectful to Bizet. Davies has added his own music to it, and the result is a score that leans into the tension of the story. The production is directed and choreographed by Bourne, with sound by Paul Groothuis, lighting by Chris Davey and design by Lez Brotherston.
It is worth knowing what you are signing up for before you book. The show is rated 15+, and the content warnings are not light: scenes of a sexual nature including sexual assault, brief frontal male nudity, smoking, strobe lighting, haze, gunshots and scenes of violence with blood. It runs for two hours with an interval, and the whole thing is built to be an intense experience rather than a gentle evening at the ballet.
On the plus side, the production is very accessible. All post-show talks with the cast and crew are performed in British Sign Language, and every audio-described performance is preceded by an on-stage touch tour. There is also a Visual Guide, a Sonic Story and a Light Map available as PDFs for anyone who needs to prepare before they go.
The venue itself is part of the draw. The Congress Theatre is a Grade II listed building with a beautifully restored mid-century interior and a striking modernist facade, and it has recently been refurbished with new seating, improved acoustics and air conditioning. It is one of the largest theatres on the South Coast, so it is a fitting room for a production of this scale.
As for the man behind it, Sir Matthew Bourne is the UK's most popular and successful choreographer, a nine-time Olivier Award winner and the only British director to have won the Tony for both Best Choreographer and Best Director of a Musical. He only began training at 22, danced professionally for fourteen years, and has since created the world's longest-running ballet. The Car Man premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2000, won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Musical Event of the Year and has since become one of his most acclaimed works. The Daily Mail called it gripping, gasp-making, edge-of-your-seat stuff, while the Observer described it as a shatteringly good piece of storytelling. Whether you are a regular dance-goer or have never set foot in a theatre, this is the kind of show that tends to convert people.
Published Date
31 October 2026
