Matthew Bourne’s award-winning The Car Man is back for a major 2026 UK tour, opening at Curve, Leicester from 15 June 2026, before visiting 16 further venues nationwide – including a five-week summer season at Sadler’s Wells.

Loosely inspired by Bizet’s ever-popular Carmen, The Car Man features one of the most thrilling and instantly recognisable scores in New Adventures’ repertoire. The familiar 19th-century Spanish cigarette factory becomes a greasy 1950s garage-diner in small-town America, where the dreams and passions of a close-knit community are shattered by the arrival of a handsome, enigmatic stranger.

Fuelled by heat and desire, the townspeople are drawn into an unstoppable spiral of lust, betrayal, greed and revenge – all set to a powerful score by Terry Davies featuring Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite (after Bizet).

“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 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’re taking the show on the road again after more than 10 years and can’t wait to re-visit the hot and steamy town of Harmony USA – the best place to be next summer!”
— Matthew Bourne

A scorching fusion of dance, drama and film-noir intensity, The Car Man will ignite your senses and leave you breathless.