A Single Man: This Christopher Isherwood adaptation is a crashing disappointment

Telegraph

04-07-2025

This dance adaptation of Christopher Isherwood 's 1964 novel A Single Man – which is having its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival, and transfers to London in September – came to the stage on a wave of great promise and expectation. The piece is adapted, choreographed and directed by Jonathan Watkins, whose past work includes Northern Ballet's celebrated staging of George Orwell's 1984.
A packed house in The Hall (the largest auditorium in Aviva Studios) on opening night spoke to the hope that Watkins would bring a similar emotional intensity to Isherwood's tale of grief and forbidden gay love as he did to Orwell's novel. Sad to say, however, this co-production between The Royal Ballet and Factory International does not enjoy the confident conception and consistent execution of the earlier piece.
Like Isherwood's book, this modern ballet traces a day in the life of George – a professor in literature in Los Angeles – who is grieving the recent loss of his lover, Jim. Watkins's adaptation opens on a set (by designer Chiara Stephenson, known for her collaborations with Lorde, Björk and SZA) that spells out in pronounced literality the themes of the two hours to come. A huge, grey, metallic frame around the stage exhibits the paraphernalia of George's day, from tennis rackets to domestic utensils. Built into this construction, and illuminated in neon outline, are the professor's body and – in a massive silhouette at the heart of the set – his head.
From the body emerges excellent dancer Ed Watson, who gives physical expression to George's experience. On a raised platform inside the head – and representing the grieving academic's mind – is American singer and musician John Grant. The thudding obviousness of this setup serves as a warning for the ballet to come. As Watson's George progresses through his day, he seizes on anything – the energy of a tennis match, the optimism of his young students – that offers a counterbalance to the profound grief that ushers him towards death.
As he does so, Grant stands up at regular intervals to give vocal expression – in songs of his own devising – to the bereft professor's thoughts. However, whether they are in prose or rhyme, the singer's lyrics are characterised by a defiantly unpoetic, often conversational language that is, more often than not, crashingly prosaic. Grant's contribution – which is elevated both literally and figuratively – does Isherwood's prose a disservice: such is its colossal prominence that it all but subsumes the choreography itself.
The dance – which unfolds in period garb (in the body scenes) and ugly, blotchy abstraction (representing the mind) – is often drearily mimetic. But it is touching in its expressions of love and anguish during the scenes in which George remembers his life with Jim (who is danced beautifully by Jonathan Goddard).
Composer Jasmin Kent Rodgman's original score – which is performed live – shifts pleasingly between the cinematically jazzy and the influence of American minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Sadly, however, her music is the strongest suit in a new ballet that promised much, but disappoints greatly, not least in its choreographic unevenness and its misconceived use of song.