The sound was unmistakenly Pet Shop Boys, the visuals less so. We were at the ballet once more, although there were no sugar plum fairies or leaping nutcrackers last Thursday night. At Sadler’s Wells for a limited 10-day run, The Most Incredible Thing is based on a three-page Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of the same name, is scored by Pet Shop Boys and choreographed by Javier de Frutos. The fable is based around a contest to produce ‘the most incredible thing’, with half the kingdom and marriage to the princess to be won.
What made The Most Incredible Thing that little bit more incredible, though, was in part the music – which was at times very modern electronic, and at others, very orchestral – and the film projection interludes, which helped the story along. Graphically styled to be very communist and Eastern European in flavour, the clips punctuated parts of the story where needed and helped break the performance into three acts. The score itself, was, like the ballet, quite dark and sinister in places, and very similar in flavour to the Battleship Potemkin soundtrack the award-winning pop duo made a few years ago.
Like other live show and soundtrack performances we’ve been to, at times you were wondering if the music was in fact being played live – especially the chugging, dramatic and sweeping electronic pieces – but live it was, booming into the undoubtedly modern Sadler’s Wells auditorium. You wouldn’t necessarily have believed there was a cast of only 16 performers, either, as costume changes were very swiftly done, while the 26-piece orchestra played Tennant and Lowe’s score in the pit below. Last night there was even a 20-minute on-stage informal chat with Tennant, Lowe and de Frutos, which comical at times, explained how the three-year creative process had come to fruition.
With a sumptuous dinner at Brown’s Islington beforehand (fish, chips and all the dressings for Nik, and calves’ liver with Sage and Rosemary mash for me), all in all, our Valentine’s Day night out was everything we could have wished for. And today, while the soundtrack plays out of my iMac’s speakers, thoughts turn once again to the ballet. Undoubtedly the most contemporary and modern one we’ve yet been to, The Most Incredible Thing was arguably the best one yet.













