Everyone is invited to a sparkling revival of Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby at Milton Keynes Theatre this month.
This Jazz Age ballet swings through the Roaring Twenties, bringing the lavish lifestyle and complex relationships depicted in the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel to the stage. Ambition, passion and obsession drive his tragic story of wealth, excess and doomed love affairs.
Nick Carraway arrives on New York’s Long Island in 1922 in pursuit of the American dream. Here, he reconnects with his incredibly rich cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. As an observant and inquisitive outsider, Nick is well placed to wonder whether their union was ever true love or has instead always been a marriage of convenience. When he is introduced to Jordan Baker, a no-nonsense professional golfer and socialite, he is immediately interested in her and they start casually dating.
Nick is most intrigued by his neighbour, Jay Gatsby – a mysterious millionaire who throws extravagant parties to escape reality and chase his past happiness. As Nick learns more about the self-made man behind the glitz and glamour, he realises that everything Gatsby does is in pursuit of an impossible dream.