Ruth Leon recommends… Spitfire – an advertisement divertissement – New Adventures
Ruth Leon recommendsSpitfire – an advertisement divertissement – New Adventures
(Funniest Ballet Spoof of All Time)
Click here to watch
Before his legendary Swan Lake, Nutcracker! and Cinderella, in 1988 Matthew Bourne created his first hit, Spitfire, and it rapidly became a signature piece.
This hilarious work places the most famous nineteenth-century ballet showstopper ‘Pas De Quatre’ in the world of men’s underwear advertising.
Both a celebration of male vanity and an affectionate comment on the preening grandeur of the danseur noble, Spitfire was last performed in 2012.
Here it is seen in the expanded 6-man version performed by New Adventures principal dancers, with slightly adapted choreography to suit these socially distanced times.
For reasons I don’t understand, the video cuts out abruptly just before the end in every available version I’ve screened. Never mind, there’s plenty here to give you the idea and marvel at the immense artistry and the wicked sense of humour that is Matthew Bourne’s Spitfire.
There are many contenders for the winner of the Funniest Ballet Spoof of All Time but Spitfire, even in truncated form, has my vote.
Reminds me of the occasion when Federico Fellini asked Nino Rota to write some “gay music but sad”. Everybody says how hilarious Spitfire is but I think that it is Bourne’s most serious and sincere work. It asks all the fundamental questions: What is masculine and what feminine? How do you make ads that reach all men, given that most of them are straight and not a few homophobic — yet we want to sell underwear to all? What are we men doing here, dancing to entertain a paying audience? And so on and so forth, not forgetting the obvious nostalgic, autobiographical element. It is funny only on the surface.