The Car Man

Always expect the unexpected from a Matthew Bourne production and it’s no different with his much acclaimed and erotically charged THE CAR MAN, loosely based on the Film Noir ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ and accompanied by a sizzling score adapted from Bizet’s opera ‘Carmen’.

First performed back in 2000, where The Car Man received its world premiere at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, the Car Man kept on drifting from town to town, from country to country, and from continent to continent over the many years, even receiving the ‘thumbs up’ from none other than actor Jack Nicholson (who starred in the 1981 movie version of ‘The Postman Always Rings…) when Bourne’s production toured the USA.

Last night, The Car Man landed at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the venue was packed to the rafters! Set in a shabby little garage-diner called ‘Dino’s Diner’ in the isolated small town of Harmony during the early 1960s, the inspired set by Lez Brotherston immediately transports the audience to this particular slice of Americana, first with a screen suggesting a copper-red sky somewhere in the Midwest, while garage and diner, run by the brutish and unsophisticated Dino Alfano (Alan Vincent), reek of gasoline, engine oil and greasy cooking oil.

Among his workers are ‘cook’ Chad (Xavier Andriambolanaro-Sotiya) who clearly had fun kneading his pizza dough, with flour going all over over the gaff while admiring sultry and sexy Lana (Cordelia Braithwaite), who happens to be Dino’s bored and long-suffering wife. Meanwhile, her sister Rita (Anna Maria De Freitas), has the hots for hired help Angelo (Leonardo McCorkindale). With cars in need of repair scattered about and numerous other sexy male mechanics (did I see a flash of full frontal nudity? Yes I did), plus assorted girlfriends and/or female diner staff all busy with their various tasks, the scenario provides the set-up for the opening sequence, choreographed throughout by Matthew Bourne and with music by Bizet - albeit not the actual opera but the Carmen Suit (string and percussion arrangement) adapted by Rodion Shchedrin, .

The scenario soon gets very steamy indeed with the arrival of hunky drifter Luca (Will Bozier), the titular Car Man looking for work. For one, Lana is immediately smitten with the handsome stranger who not only stirs up sexual desires in her but also in Angelo (not to mention the suppressed community of Harmony per se). Adding to the unfolding erotic triangle is Rita who, although very much involved with Angelo, likewise isn’t adversed to the stranger who sure knows how to play his cards with Lana…with Angelo and with Rita!

During one moment of passion between Lana and Luca in the upper floor of the garage building, Dino is about to climb up the staircase when he accidentally drops drops his keys and a briefcase. Alerted by the sound of the dropping items, Lana sees to it that Luca (still in his underpants) escapes via the fire escape ladder on the opposite side of the building. In a scene which is both funny and tense, the two men run into one another in the courtyard, with Luca lying that he was involved in a fight with a fellow worker and Dino rightly sceptical, while Lana anxiously observes everything from the window.

It’s the perfect moment for finally getting rid of her hated husband and both plan on murdering him, with Luca administering several blows with a heavy tool. Initially, they think that making it look like a robbery might be a good idea and drag the corpse inside Dino’s office while hiding themselves, but Dino happens to be not quite dead just yet and crawls along the courtyard, blood dripping from his head. This time, it’s Lana who finishes him off for good by administering the final blow, but still Dino keeps crawling before finally breathing his last behind a car. Too bad that Angelo happens to turn up at the wrong time at the wrong place, dragging his fatally wounded boss back to the courtyard again in shock - this time with bystanders looking on and a policeman arriving. His white t-shirt blood smeared, Angelo seems the obvious killer and it’s an opportunity which Lara seizes on by pointing her finger towards him. Most conveniently, Angelo is made the culprit for a crime he didn’t commit, with a devastated Rita attempting in vain to prove his innocence.

Act 2 takes place six months later and we find ourselves in the groovy city club ‘Le Beat-Route’ with dancers dressed in black, while the background then changes to the County Jailhouse, with Angelo dancing flanked by other inmates. That said, there’s a somewhat ambiguous dance interlude which leaves us wondering whether the city club scene is real or whether it is a dream of sorts in which both prisoners and also the residents of Harmony find escape from reality.
For the final action and the climax, which we won’t give away here, we’re back again at Dino’s Diner where fate takes its course. Suffice to say, all is interspersed with incredible dance numbers, flawlessly executed by the entire ensemble. This production might not be for purists who expect a more straightforward adaptation of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ but then again, since when has a Matthew Bourne production ever been straightforward?

THE CAR MAN runs until Saturday Nov. 7th at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh.
For more information and tickets, please go to capitaltheatres.com