For my roughly annual trip away from Dame Theatre to Baroness Dance, it's one of the Matthew Bourne ballets I've managed to miss on its numerous previous visits to London since its 2000 debut.
The Car Man is based on Bizet's opera
Carmen, although only musically - the story is apparently more directly inspired by
The Postman Always Rings Twice. Set in a small town in 1950s America, whose economy seems disproportionately based on the auto repair and cabaret industries for a population of 375, drifter Luca (Will Bozier at tonight's performance) arrives looking for work. He makes quite an impression, seducing both the boss' wife Lana (Eleanor McGrath) and bullied young man Angelo (Harry Ondrak-Wright.) When Lana's husband Dino (Cameron Flynn) catches them, she and Luca kill him and frame Angelo for it.
