Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

Outsiders really do loom large in Matthew Bourne's story-telling hits, but none of them are so obviously set apart from (supposedly) normal life as Edward, the towsy-headed, patched-together lad whose fingers are like switch-blades.

Those shiny, snicketty-snick scissorhands are a challenge in themselves for whoever is cast as Edward, but there's more to the character than costuming extremes. Dominic North is hauntingly attuned to the inner loneliness and vulnerable naivete of the wistful dreamer in Bourne's stage version of Tim Burton's film.

North's performance is persuasively subtle. The flashing scissorhands will always splay out with an implied danger, but his Edward has a child-like quality of bewilderment that lends itself to comedy - why is this woman getting so intimately friendly with me? - but slips easily into heart-rending pathos when his novelty value wears thin and the community of Hope Springs turns hostile.

That community itself is a sly collage of small-town America in the 1950s, squeaky-clean, but with grubby little secrets.

Bourne's astutely-detailed choreography lets you in on who's who and what's what, so that when the stage explodes with big ensemble numbers - the summer barbecue, the Christmas party - the dance does more than cleverly reference period styles, it draws you in to the undertow of rock'n'roll rebelliousness and one-up-manship that Edward can mimic but never be part of.

Could he and Kim (Ashley Shaw, full of cheer-leading bounce) have made it as a couple? Their duets are so joyous and tender, you hope against hope that love will overcome difference and bigoted hatred. At every level, from dance to design, music and showmanship, this is supreme Bourne in action - but take a hanky.