Review: GENTLEMAN JACK, Sadler's Wells
Northern Ballet bring the story of "the first modern lesbian" to life.
At this point in the history of humanity, a ballet translated from screen to stage or built around a real person is more likely to raise eyebrows than expectations. That’s not to say they have a uniform quality - Rambert’s Peaky Blinders: The Redemption Of Thomas Shelby blew the roof off Sadler’s Wells while Birmingham Royal Ballet’s tribute to Black Sabbath was an unholy mess. No, the main qualm is that it all smacks of hopping onto a passing bandwagon and hoping fervent fans of the source material fill the stalls.
A collaboration between Northern Ballet and Finnish National Ballet and Opera, Gentleman Jack is a little different. It has already raised eyebrows but for not the above reasons: before it had even opened, it was awarded the prestigious Fedora Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Prize 2025, the European prize supporting opera and dance co-productions. That kind of pre-emptive confidence tends either to embarrass or vindicate.
In this case, it vindicates. That perhaps is less surprising looking at the team bringing the story of “the first modern lesbian” to life. This is Federico Bonelli’s first commission as Artistic Director of Northern Ballet since leaving his role of Principal at the Royal Ballet and has chosen wisely. Choreographer Annabelle López Ochoa is a specialist when it comes to full-length narrative ballets and has form when it comes to adapting to the stage the lives of women who flouted social convention: FRIDA, Coco Chanel: The Life of a Fashion Icon and Callas, La Divina. Clare Croft, biographer of lesbian dance critic Jill Johnston, is on dramaturgical duty. Then there’s composer Peter Salem whose score resonates with Yorkshire and Scottish folk sounds, ambient, electronic textures and (when we meet the coalminders) unapologetic slabs of brass.
Anne Lister’s history is one that has only grown more fascinating over time and was recently depicted in Sally Wainwright’s 2019 BBC TV series. Called Gentleman Jack due to her preference for male clothing, the 19th century Yorkshire industrialist had several lesbian love affairs including one with fellow landowner Ann Walker. An intriguing aspect is the detail with have from Lister herself: she kept details of her daily life in a diary running to five million words, around a sixth of it was written in a private code mixing Greek letters, zodiac signs and mathematical symbols and deciphered only after her death.
Power is a theme that runs like a river through this work, splashing every scene in markedly different ways. Gemma Coutts — in an outfit that veers slightly from Lister’s signature black — is a commanding force in top hat, tails and trousers especially in scenes where she deals with the men around her, not least her nemesis Christopher Rawson (played with stern vibrancy by George Liang). Her walking stick is not there to help her get around the Yorkshire Dales but to impose her will on those who get in her way; by pounding one end into the ground, she literally stamps her authority for all to hear. Lister’s manly side goes beyond her outfit and her cane: Lopez Ochoa imbues every swing of the legs and every arm movement with deep masculine energy.
Louise Flannigan's costumes and Christopher Ash's set handle inner and outer worlds with equal precision. The Chorus of Words deploys the corps in bodysuits printed with Lister's coded text, a physical manifestation of her compulsive diary-keeping that earns its full weight in the wedding scene, when her words become the only witnesses to and record of a ceremony the world would not recognise. Bookshelves fly in from the wings and revolve to reveal rural landscape on portrait screens. It never feels busy.
The titanic struggle between Lister and Rawson is played out in epic battles with comic touches. At one point, Liang pulls out a scroll showing a deed of ownership over contested land; Coutts responds by producing out her own much, much longer scroll. The soot-faced miners caught between them make their point without a word. Grim determination wins out eventually over brutal violence but the cost of Lister’s resistance is made painfully clear.
When not being a Victorian Succession, Bonelli spends time exploring his heroine’s personal relationships. The highly sensual choreography underlined by Salem’s sensitive score. The boldness of physical intimacy – from strong kissing to vaguer nods towards cunnilingus and tribbing – complements the more tender contact between Lister and her lovers. Saeka Shirai's Mariana Lawton, the great love who chose a husband over Lister, brings a melancholy grace to Act One before Act Two pivots to Walker (Rachael Gillespie).
None of which undoes what is otherwise a production of admirable cohesion. The score and choreography make an emotional landscape as specific and weather-beaten as Lister's own Yorkshire. Like this show, the real Gentleman Jack raised eyebrows in her lifetime too. Some things are worth the arched brow.
Gentleman Jack continues at Sadlers Wells until 23 May and is on tour.
Photo credits: Emily Nuttall
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