MATTHEW Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty is returning to the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford next month.

The show, described as a gothic tale for all ages, will be staged by Bourne’s New Adventures dance company from February 23 to 27.

Bourne has turned the traditional tale of good versus evil and rebirth upside-down, creating a supernatural love story that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.

His new scenario introduces several characters not seen in Petipa’s famous ballet or Grimm’s original fairy tale. The imaginary kingdom is ruled over by King Benedict and Queen Eleanor, and Princess Aurora’s romantic interest is not a prince, but the royal gamekeeper, Leo.

Representing the central forces of good and evil are Count Lilac (the King of the Fairies) and the Dark Fairy Carabosse. Bourne has also created the character of Caradoc, the sinister but charming son of Carabosse.

Princess Aurora’s Fairy Godparents are characterised by their names - Ardor, Hibernia, Autumnus, Feral and Tantrum.

Perrault’s timeless fairy tale, about a young girl cursed to sleep for 100 years, was turned into a legendary ballet by Tchaikovsky and choreographer, Marius Petipa, in 1890.

Bourne takes this date as his starting point, setting the Christening of Aurora, the story’s heroine, in the year of the ballet’s first performance – the height of the Fin-de-Siecle period when fairies, vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination.

As Aurora grows into a young woman, we move forwards in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical golden age of long summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes.

Years later, awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day -- a world more mysterious than any fairy story!

Visit bradford-theatres.co.uk or call 01274 432000 for further information or to book tickets for Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty.