Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker! at Sadler's Wells Theatre 20 November 25 January. Booking 0207 863 8000. Bourne Nutcracker Listings A Nutcracker flyer from Sadler's Wells Jeffery Taylor reviews Web version held on Ballet.co by kind permission of Jeffery Taylor and the Sunday Express Express Website

I thought for a moment I was interviewing the wrong subversive rebel.

After all cultural demons intent on destroying the fabric of civilisation do not normally come in corduroy slacks, baggy pullover, Cornish pasty shoes and a short back and sides. Nor are they supposed to greet one with a modest lop-sided grin and a cool handshake more Teddington than Taliban. But yes, this cuddly six-footer turned out to be Matthew Bourne, otherwise known as the Damien Hirst of British Dance or the Beastie Boy of Ballet.

Bourne threw down a marker for his outrageously brilliant career in 1987 with a less than promising debut piece sending up the mentally and physically disabled entitled Does Your Crimplene Go All Crusty When You Rub. It was a huge success. There then followed more than a decade of outrage for the old guard of dance as Bourne's erotic, often gay take on the art form, including Spitfire featuring four enthusiastic young men in Y-fronts and singlets, kept on filling theatres with a new, young audience.

Bourne eventually hit the international headlines in 1995 when his controversial all male Swan Lake had the house full signs out in the West End and Broadway before winning a clutch of international awards, including a Tony. And next week he presents his 1992 reworking of the country's annual favourite balletic treat, Nutcracker! at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre.

"But beware if you looking for an alternative sneer at traditional festive treats", says Bourne, "because it's

"..it's definitely a family show, for boys as well as little ballet girls and their Mums. There are tough little orphan boys they can relate to and pillow fights that all kids love"

definitely a family show, for boys as well as little ballet girls and their Mums. There are tough little orphan boys they can relate to and pillow fights that all kids love. And there's no gay twist in it, it's for all the family. I like to think", he adds, "it delivers all the seasonal components like a transformation scene, a Snow scene and the Land of the Sweeties where everyone is judged not how they look but how they taste. There's a lot of licking going on". Hmm. "It's based on the traditional scenario, but it opens in a grim grey orphanage that the kids break out of into a fantasy land of skating, eating and flying".

None of which sounds the slightest bit outrageous. "Me as a rebel has been an easy story to write", explains Bourne. "People think I'm rebelling against the ballet world but I never came from there in the first place. I came to dancing in my late teens and studied at the Laban School of modern dance so I have no history of classical ballet except being a fan. The Bad Boy of Ballet just isn't true. I've felt very welcomed into the ballet world, dancers seem to like what I do."

"I'm really very old fashioned and caring", he goes on. "All I ever want to do is to please an audience. I've had the image of being flippant, parodying things with camp theatrical humour and that has stuck. But I think I've brought heart and intelligence into my work."

The Matthew Bourne that is being unwrapped before me is a very different creature to the drug crazed, kinky sex mad rebel of the public's perception. "I'm a homemaker at heart", he admits. "I did the clubs during my 20s before anyone knew my name, now I like to get back to things I know". Bourne, 42, is big on continuity. He has lived with his partner, dancer Arthur Pita, for 6 years and owned his elegant Georgian north London home for 8. "I've grown to love my Aga", he says, which sort of sums up the Bourne outlook on life.

He has recently bought a holiday home just off the Brighton seafront for his parents, retired Thames Water controller, Jim, and his wife June, "my only sign of affluence", he says ruefully. "My parents always loved the theatre", he recalls, "and sat me in front of old films on the telly to keep me quiet which started my obsession. We were a working class family in Walthamstow, where his parents still live in the same rented family home. And I went to a rough comprehensive school and never thought in terms of bettering myself. It wasn't until my late teens when I discovered the gay world that I realised I could move between the social divides. So many directors are Oxbridge types these days and I do feel inadequate sometimes when I work with the likes of Trevor Nunn and Nick Hytner. Trevor's vocabulary can leave us all wanting. It was very amusing listening to Martine MacCutcheon during My Fair Lady rehearsals explaining to Trevor what a saveloy was. Martine and me were born in the same hospital in Clacton High Street so we connected straight away". And north London is where his heart is. "I like the tension when I'm around famous people. When we did

"If I wanted to I could push my way through life on my celebrity status, but I don't work like that"

Swan Lake in America I went to Elizabeth Taylor's house and all of that and it was great, but it was better to get back to the real world in my own house.

"If I wanted to I could push my way through life on my celebrity status, but I don't work like that". When he was in Los Angeles Bourne was also inundated with film offers. "I could have made films, by now", he agrees, "but I think I m a bit scared of them. I understand theatre, but I don t know how to do a film. However I'd love to do a movie based of Play Without Words". Bourne's latest surprise hit at the National Theatre, where the young Bourne once worked as an usher, is a dance/mime based on Joseph Losey's 1963 film, The Servant. Bourne's firm grasp of period ephemera and the use of three dancer/actors portraying the same character simultaneously produced a many layered sophisticated kaleidoscope that was quintessentially English as well as a huge critical and audience success.

"Yes", he agrees, "it was very English. There's often a raw heart to my stuff but I do show it in a very English way, ironic, flippant and whimsical and if I can find a repressed character I'm really happy. That's why I do period stories because today anything goes and it's not so interesting. Noel Coward and Ivor Novello both told a deep truth in as flippant a way as possible They are my heroes. I'm very proud when I'm classified with Coward and Novello, to be part of that understated world of the archetypical Englishman. I do feel instinctively that I belong to that world rather than the modern one". So saying, Mad Dog Bourne poured us both another cup of Earl Grey.

Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker! at Sadler's Wells Theatre 20 November 25 January.
Booking 0207 863 8000.