Ashley Shaw, Cordelia Braithwaite, Hannah Kremer and Holly Saw will take the lead role in Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, which will play at Sadler’s Wells this Christmas as part of a UK tour.
The show returns to the stage for the first time since its 2020 tour was cut short due to the pandemic. It premiered in 2016
Shaw, Braithwaite, Kremer and Saw play Victoria Page in the show based on the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. The cast also includes Andy Monaghan and Reece Causton as Boris Lermontov, Dominic North and Leonardo McCorkindale as Julian Kraster, Michela Meazza, Cordelia Braithwaite and Katrina Lyndon as Irina Boronskaya, Liam Mower, Will Bozier and Jackson Fisch as Ivan Boleslawsky and Glenn Graham, Liam Mower and Reece Causton as Grischa Ljubov.
They are joined by Mark Austin, Tom Barnes Standing, New Adventures Emerging Artist Isabella Chandler, Adam Davies, Cameron Flynn, Anna-Maria de Freitas, Christina Gibbs, Thomas Ireson, Rosanna Lindsey, Callum Mann, Daisy May Kemp, Jarrod McWilliams, Matthew Potulski, Molly Shaw-Downie, Kingston Taylor, Shakiera Ward and Daisy West.
The Red Shoes is a tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a fierce struggle between the two men who inspire her passion.
Bourne’s production from his New Adventures company is set to a score orchestrated by Terry Davies, featuring the music of golden-age Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann, with designs by Lez Brotherston (set and costumes), Paule Constable (lighting) and Paul Groothuis (sound).
The Red Shoes opens in Plymouth and travels to Salford before a seven-week Christmas season at Sadler’s Wells from December 2, 2025 to January 18, 2026. The tour then continues on to Glasgow, Nottingham, Milton Keynes, Woking, Liverpool, Cardiff, Southampton, Birmingham, Canterbury, Norwich, Edinburgh, Bradford and Newcastle.
Sadler’s Wells tickets here.
Top image: Ashley Shaw, Cordelia Braithwaite, Hannah Kremer and Holly Saw (images supplied)