Georgina Campbell enjoys a gleeful Matthew Bourne retrospective

With a satirical twinkle in his eye, Sir Matthew Bourne will always choreograph a beautifully entertaining show.

His dancers can not only manipulate their bodies into the most complex and ambitious shapes and sequences, but can also act and tease out his underlying themes and social commentaries. And his retrospective of sorts, Early Adventures, at the Oxford Playhouse, was no exception.

It is easy to see why the three works on offer launched Mr Bourne’s career, because they remain fresh and witty, a quarter of a century after their premiere.

Watch With Mother opened the show and was set to the nannyish tones of Joyce Grenfell with music by Percy Grainger. It saw dancers in 1950s school uniform going through their paces in the gym.

It was not the strongest of Bourne’s three pieces. The sight of adults in school uniform is unsettling and perhaps it has not withstood time thanks to recent news developments. The dark undercurrents of spite and desire suddenly seemed sinister.

Humour was restored in his old-fashioned clichés of British and French culture in the pieces Town and Country and The Infernal Galop. They were a delight to watch as age-old stereotypes never stop being funny.

A particular favourite was a sequence in Town and Country where two dancers went through the rigmarole of having a bath, with much energetic use of loofahs. The tragic death of a hedgehog puppet in a road accident and its ensuing funeral, followed, concluded by a brilliant sequence of the company on scooters. I was very impressed no one fell off, given all the twists and turns.

The finale – a droll cancan – was the perfect ending to a performance that had seen the audience burst out in raucous laughter from start to finish. Matthew Bourne is nothing if not funny. It was also refreshing to see him in the second row, clapping enthusiastically for his talented dancers.

Fascinating then to see the initial brilliant but tenuous tendrils of genius creeping out, paving the road for his extravaganzas of the future. 4/5