The Car Man to return for major UK tour

The Car Man will embark on a UK tour in 2026.

Matthew Bourne’s award-winning dance thriller was first seen in 2000, and this new tour is the first since 2015.

The New Adventures piece is loosely based on Bizet’s popular opera Carmen, and is set in a garage diner in the 1960s.

Directed and choreographed by Bourne, The Car Man has music by Terry Davies and Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite (after Bizet’s Carmen), with sound by Paul Groothuis, lighting by Chris Davey and design by Lez Brotherston.

Casting is to be confirmed.

Bourne said: “I never dreamed when we created this show at the beginning of the new millennium that it would still be around, thrilling audiences, 25 years later!

“Inspired by vintage movie film noir classics, it holds a unique and special place in the New Adventures repertory as the only piece based on an opera and possibly the first ballet to feature a bisexual anti-hero! I’m particularly happy that we are taking the show “on the road” again after more than 10 years and I can’t wait to revisit the hot and steamy town of Harmony USA – the best place to be next summer!”

It will visit 17 venues next year, including a 5-week summer season at Sadler’s Wells in London. The tour will open at Curve, Leicester, in June before visiting Salford, Hull, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Sheffield, London, Bristol, Newcastle, Southampton, Nottingham, Norwich, Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Canterbury.