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Bourne has already reinvented two of the classic Tchaikovsky ballets - The Nutcracker and Swan Lake - and now, with Sleeping Beauty, he takes on a third.

Choderlos de Laclos's great epistolary novel was a succes de scandale when it first appeared in 1782, and it's been pleasurably scandalizing readers \" and audiences \" ever since. Those of us with long memories remember the French actor Gerard Philipe in Roger Vadim's film, not to mention John Malkovich in Stephen Frears's film, and Alan Rickman as the rou in the Royal Shakespeare Company production. Now it's the turn of the dancer Adam Cooper, in a show designed, co-written and co-directed by Lez Brotherston. For the creative team behind Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Highland Fling, and The Car Man, this is new territory.

You could, perhaps, describe the event as the first stage in the re-branding of Scottish Ballet. For even though Peg Beveridge, chairman of the Scottish Ballet Board, referred to the new artistic director as carrying on the Darrell tradition of narrative ballets, the company's existing audiences will soon discover that Robert North has his own choice of stories and his own choreographic way of expressing them. The next few months will be an interesting and challenging time for all concerned as the full impact of North's personal vision is felt on the repertoire and movement vocabulary. Do not expect tutus, tiaras and pointe shoes.

Clearly, theirs is not a traditional choreographer-designer relationship. \"Matt doesn't come to me and say, 'Oh, I want to have male swans', and I go away and design them,\" explains the 51-year-old Liverpudlian. Instead, every aspect of the story, character and staging is planned between them before [Matthew Bourne] even sets foot in the studio. \"Matt looks at everything I draw, and one idea spins off to the next. Some of what we come up with is rubbish, and Matt changes his mind at every meeting, which can be frustrating and brilliant. But the whole thing becomes so enmeshed that we can't remember whose idea is whose.\" The results have ranged from the Blitz glamour of a second world war Cinderella to the aching cool of Play Without Words, a story of sex and class on the cusp of the Swinging 60s. One character [Lez Brotherston] and Bourne were keen to develop was Carabosse, the evil fairy who lays the curse on Aurora. \"The fairytale never explains why she's so angry,\" says Brotherston. \"Is it just because she didn't get an invitation to Aurora's christening - or could there be something else? Maybe the baby was hers, and she gave it to the king and queen because they couldn't get pregnant.\" Brotherston aims to make every detail as precise as possible. \"When you haven't got words to explain anything, the minute a character walks on stage you have to understand everything about them.\" Often that means treading a fine line between clarity and cliche. When he was planning costumes for the opening court scene, he could see no alternative to the obvious: moustache and military regalia for the king, pearls and tiara for the queen. Bourne hated the idea. \"He thought it would be too Nicholas and Alexandra; he didn't want any connection with the Romanovs. My problem is that that's how every royal court looked in 1890. That's how the audience know where they are.\"

We don't get to know his Cinderella much better. Kerry Biggin, who regularly stars in [Matthew Bourne]'s productions, makes a pallid heroine. She starts out mousy with a grey cardigan and glasses, then goes glamorous (though still monochrome) in a silver dress and platinum-blonde hair. Bourne and Biggin don't show us how that feels; it's a good costume change, not a realised dream. Sam Archer's yearning lines give the Pilot a little more character. There are clever touches in this romance. Dreaming of the ball, Cinderella dances with a dressmaker's dummy. A whirl behind a curtain, and she's dancing with her pilot - though he's still difficult to move, a fantasy figure who won't quite behave. It's a nice idea for a duet, but the choreography is limited.

Since then, his career's been littered with accolades: he's won a further four Oliviers. Nutcracker! became the first ballet to be screened by BBC One in over 20 years. So what does he think of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing? 'I love it! It's my guilty pleasure,' he says. 'I'd never be snobby about it because there's room for all kinds of dance. 'When I watch anyone become overwhelmed by dancing, it brings a smile to my face and tears to my eyes,' he says. 'And Widdy's loving it. But it's time she went now. It's a shame she's stayed in and we've lost good people such as Felicity Kendal.' 'I've loved Prokofiev's score ever since I watched Frederick Ashton's royal Ballet version of Cinderella,' he says. 'It's got everything: grand waltzes, mazurkas, national dances. But lurking beneath the fairytale romance is a darker heart that buries its way deeper inside you every time you listen to it.'

What leaves this \"Liaisons\" running in place? The answer doesn't become fully apparent until the second half, at which point even those who have succumbed to the production's enticements - and they are genuine - are likely to have switched off.