The Most Incredible Thing

Sadler’s Wells, London
26 March 2011

A curious beast this. The Pet Shop Boys first foray into ballet producing a new score for Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale The Most Incredible Thing, with choreography from Javier de Frutos.
For most of its two and a quarter hours running time I wondered if I was watching a ballet at all. There is a great deal going on here amongst all the flying, shifting scenery and film projections. Perhaps too much, as you leave at the end with a strong sense of anti-climax.
This fairytale kingdom is set in a totalitarian world. We know this as the choreography at the beginning shows the workers as automatons of the state. It’s impressive but is almost too repetitive.
PSB’s music is distinctive and at times has a softer, more classical edge than what one would expect. But like Pet Shop Boys in general it fails to impress me.
The actual competition to find The Most Incredible Thing is done rather naffly. An unctuous compere introduces us to various acts. Do we need this in a ballet? I know the turns themselves are meant to be bizarre. I liked the man with the rock on his head, but the monkey puppet just seemed overly pointless.
I don’t want to be too down on this show as the second act was glorious. Here we discover what the clock that becomes the most incredible thing can actually do. We are given a wonderful fusion of movement, music and film that conveys the power of this clock. So each number represents what it can stand for, four seasons, five senses, ten commandments etc. It is an over-blown sequence that culminates in an astronaut wandering on to the stage (Apollo 11, geddit?) but it works. It’s as if Tennant, Lowe and Frutos were no longer constrained by narrative and just went for it. A pure theatrical flight of fancy.
In act three after the clock has been destroyed I was actually looking forward to another surreal sequence as the clock seeks its revenge. However, nothing. A huge cog comes down in front of Karl the villain and he disappears. That’s’ it. A nice wedding. The end.
This is a brave, but flawed show. It’s clearly trying to push the boundaries of ballet, but there’s no real emotional connection there.