IF you think spectacle belongs entirely to cinema these days with the 3D wizardry in movies like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, think again.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Wales Millennium Centre is just as much a visual feast, and there's no need for 3D specs.

In fact, it is nothing short of magnificent.

Swan Lake is one of the world's favourite ballets.

Tchaikovsky's music is beautiful and inspiring and matching the gracefulness of swans with the poise of ballet seems a match forged in heaven.

But there are many different interpretations of the classic and here Bourne's multiple-award-winning production, which he prefers to describe as dance/theatre, rather than ballet, casts men as the swans, adding a very different, homoerotic edge, although this performance is drenched in sexuality of every persuasion.

The performance is in a more contemporary setting with even a pink neon lit bar named Swank as one of the many backdrops.

The set is a work of art and makes this ballet feel at times both initimate and grand.

At one point the stage becomes a theatre itself, complete with an annoying mobile phone going off in the 'audience'.

Humour is scattered about this production, and not just chuckles, but laugh-out-loud moments - very unusual for 'ballet' which can sometimes feel a little too stuffy.

But the humour is balanced by incredible drama and long dance sequences which will leave you breathless.

And the end, starring Jonathan Ollivier as the Swan and Dominic North as the Prince, is a heart-tugging, emotion-charged crescendo of music and tragedy.

Believe me, it will live in the memory.

PT

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake continues until March 13.