Bourne's tartan sauce

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when you daren't say boo to a ballerina. Ballet was an aristocratic art form, the culture of kings, and we all had to assume the deferential manners of the court that accompanied it.

And then along came people like Matthew Bourne who said, well, no, ballet isn't about the aristocracy, it's about us. Bourne's approach was to rework the classics, ditching ballet's grand manners and dreary middle-aged demeanour, and giving us fresh, modern productions that made us bloodhounds for the originals.

What is this Sylphide, you sensed the audience asking during Bourne's Highland Fling. It's a little-seen romantic-era ballet, set in rural Scotland that Bourne updates to a contemporary Glasgow high-rise. His hero is James, a lager-swilling, E-popping welder, bewitched by an inky-eyed siren who could be real or a drug-induced freedom fantasy.

Either way, his intended, Effie, aka Miss Hospital Corners, gives him gate fever, and so the reluctant groom pursues the alluring Sylph and scuppers his chances of flesh-andblood happiness.

With Fling, there's a nagging tension between the jokey, bright-lit setting, and the darker undertow of love and sex, and the panic of doors closing.

Bourne's remake also seems to call questions to the original, with the original whispering back its answers about our instinctive pursuit of the ideal and its inherent unattainability.

Made in 1994, Highland Fling is a short dance-drama (in 7.30pm, out 9.15pm), with clever ideas and tartan-agogo designs by Lez Brotherston. For the Sadler's Wells run, all has been expanded, with bigger sets and 11 rather than seven dancers, although those who saw it at the Donmar or The Place will recognise the same larky humour, dancers best described as having a relaxed approach to placement, and Bourne's workmanlike rather than inspired choreography.

That said, there are nice choreographic touches, like the unisex Sylph dances, and the Scottish sword dancing scene, with the men as the swords and the women skipping around their prostrate forms. Fling is an ensemble ballet, with all 11 dancers near equal contributors. However, special mention to Kerry Biggin who makes an especially mischievous Sylph.

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New Adventures: Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling