The Great Gatsby at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking Review
Northern Ballet’s
The Great Gatsby
New Victoria Theatre, Woking
23-27 September 2014
www.atgtickets.com/new-victoria-theatre
Reviewed by Christine Charlesworth
Beautiful sets, wonderful costumes, dancers as light on their feet as if they were butterflies. The Northern Ballet is on tour and anyone with even the smallest liking of dance should try to see this company perform.
On 22 September I visited the New Victoria Theatre in Woking to see ‘The Great Gatsby’ adapted from F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel by choreographer David Nixon, who also designed the costumes and directed the production.
As always, this popular theatre was buzzing with people, many in small groups of female friends, a few young groups from dance academies, all chattering away in great excitement competing with the melodies played on the piano in the ‘piano bar’. The atmosphere was electric.
‘The Great Gatsby’ is set in the 1920’s, which enables the production to show the wonderful costumes and glamour of that era, together with great jazz dance numbers and elegant parties. Set between the Wars, it was a time when everything in life was beautiful.
The story is of a young man, Jimmy Gatz, now Jay Gatsby (Tobias Batley) who won and lost the love of Daisy Fay (Martha Leebolt) just before he went off to fight in the Great War. Gatsby, having made great financial gains through corruption, now lives in a large manor house, just across the bay from where Daisy now lives with her husband, Tom Buchanan(Kenneth Tindall) and their young daughter. However, it is not a very happy marriage and Buchanan is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson (Jessica Morgan) the wife of garage owner George Wilson (Isaac Lee-Baker). Daisy’s cousin, Nick Carraway (Guiliano Contadini) lives in a cottage next door Gatsby’s mansion and, during the story, falls in love with Daisy’s best friend Jordan Baker (Hannah Bateman). Gatsby is still in love with Daisy and has vowed to win her back.
The ballet has eight scenes in each of the two Acts. These are set on Long island/ East Egg/ George Wilson’s garage/ Streets of New York/ a New York Apartment/ Gatsby’s Mansion/ The Cottage/ the room of mirrors/ Park Plaza Hotel/ Tom and Daisy’s home and the dock overlooking the bay. The set, designed by Jerome Kaplan, is superb and the way it effortlessly changes using sliding or dropping flats with doors and windows that open, magically gives each scene a different atmosphere. The lighting, designed by Tim Mitchell, enhanced the wonderful costumes and adds depth and atmosphere to the sets.
As always the Northern Ballet dancers were wonderful. The choreography was sometimes extremely fast and often very intricate. I particularly enjoyed Isaac Lee-Bakers’s solo with a car tyre and the strong, aggressive dancing of Kenneth Tindall. Jessica Morgan was a joy to watch and the co-ordination of the male dancers in the party scenes was spot on.
Music was by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett with orchestrations by John Longstaff and Gavin Sutherland.
With such a complicated story to get across to the audience without the use of words was a difficult task, so I was pleased to see that there was a complete breakdown and explanation of the story in the programme. I felt that Act One flowed much better than Act Two, which had so much angst to portray it sometimes seemed too complicated to follow.
However, the dancing was superb and this is definitely a show I would recommend seeing, even if you do not normally enjoy ballet.
Rating: 5/5 
Tickets cost from £11.90 to £42.40 (plus £2.85 transaction fee).
Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby is at the New Victoria Theatre until 27 September 2014. For more information or to book tickets click here or call the box office on 0844 871 7645.
Tour dates:
Woking 23-27 September
Nottingham 30September – 4October
Canterbury 28October – 1 November
Bradford 11–15November
New Victoria Theatre, The Ambassadors, Peacocks Centre, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6GQ
