A Single Man, The Ballet (News Feature)

Dancer Jonathan Goddard talks to Ballet Position about his two roles in the new ballet, A Single Man

A Single Man is a study in grief. Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel traces a day in the life of George, a middle-aged British academic teaching in LA, who’s grieving for his long-term partner, Jim, killed in a car crash.

Decades later Colin Firth would play George in Tom Ford’s 2009 film of the novel – his intense, understated, Oscar-nominated performance made him the very embodiment of grieving George.

Certainly, when I think of George it’s Firth who immediately comes to mind.

But I’ve just met another George, who may well come to supersede Firth in my imagination: the dancer and actor Jonathan Goddard, who will alternate in the roles of George and Jim in choreographer Jonathan Watkins’s new ballet, A Single Man.

Co-produced by The Royal Ballet and Factory International, the new ballet will premiere at the Manchester Festival in July, prior to an extended run at the Royal Ballet and Opera Linbury Theatre in the autumn.

Jonathan Goddard in a still from Robert Cohan’s Portraits

Jonathan Goddard is an extraordinarily powerful performer and over a long career he’s put his imprint on many haunting characters: Dracula, Macbeth, Frankenstein for Mark Bruce, the blind seer Tiresias for Kim Brandstrup, to name but a few that remain etched in my memory.

However, this George will not be entirely Goddard’s own. For one thing, Edward Watson, former Royal Ballet principal and another big beast of the stage, will alternate with Goddard in the role.

For another thing, the highly experienced choreographer Jonathan Watkins, formerly of the Royal Ballet, has his own very clear idea of who George is. So, when Jonathan Goddard joined me in an RBO office after a day of rehearsals, I asked him, how does all that coalesce into one character?

“There’s me, Jonathan and Ed and we’re not that different in age, we’re all around the same mid to late 40s (actually, I think Jonathan is just 40), and I think there’s three ideas of what George could be in that pot.

“What Jonathan is really strong on is how it sits musically. If it sits musically there’s room for interpretation. The steps are the same, I think people will be seeing the same, but even if I tried, I’d never be what Ed Watson is and he’d never be what I am, so we have different qualities.”

With a dozen-strong cast, the ballet follows George through one day when he goes about the normal business of living, even while his overwhelming grief makes him doubt the value of life itself.

There is in him, Jonathan Goddard says, a fracture:

“Through grief the mind and the body become separated and the idea is that the work leads them towards each other.”

A Narrative Musical Score

To represent that fracture, Watkins invited the American-born Icelandic singer/songwriter John Grant to compose seven songs, which will be performed on stage and represent George’s internal monologue. In other words, Goddard explains,

“He is the head and I’m the body.”

Grant’s songs will be complemented by music commissioned from the young composer Jasmin Kent Rodgman, whose style is described as existing between the contemporary classical, experimental, electronic music and sound art worlds; Goodard describes the score as quite “cinematic” and “incredibly right now”.

During nine of those musical interludes Jim appears – more frequently in this ballet than in either novel or film. Goddard will dance Jim in some performances, and finds the role challenging:

“It’s interesting, because there’s not that much about Jim in the book, I had to really think about being somebody through somebody else’s eyes – it’s the idea that George has of Jim.

“it’s like playing an absence, it’s an interesting thing to take on, which I quite enjoy.”

Visually, the ballet will probably be as stylish as the film, a first foray into movie making by the fashion designer Tom Ford. Production credits include original costume concepts by Oscar-winning Holly Waddington and costume designer Eleanor Bull, set design by Chiara Stephenson, and lighting by Simisola Majekodunmi.

A Gay Love Story

Mainstream ballet is sometimes accused of not doing enough to tackle gay themes; A Single Man goes a long way towards meeting those concerns head on. The musician John Grant is known for frankly exploring his homosexuality in his lyrics, and will bring those insights to the songs he is creating for this ballet.

Jonathan Watkins, founder of the alternative company BalletQueer, has long worked on aspects of gay life; he is absolutely the right person to helm this project, says Jonathan Goddard:

“I was attracted to this because I always think, why should you be the person to do the project, and I definitely think Jonathan is the right person to do this. He feels very strongly about those kinds of issues. The cast is incredibly diverse.

“I’m married, I have a husband, and I worked with Ed before; but I’ve always played characters that generally have female relationships on stage. That doesn’t bother me at all, I’m an actor, that’s what I do, I play characters, I play people that are not real, I want to be able to do whatever I can; but it’s nice to be with Ed, to be with somebody my own age, play a relationship through that.”

Without denying the essentially gay nature of the work – Isherwood’s novel is, after all, an exponent of gay literature – I suggested to Jonathan Goddard that its theme of grief and loss was, in fact, universal.

“I think everybody can identify with the sense of loss, with the sense of empathy, with the sense of trying to find your identity when something is gone, when you’re trying to put your identity back together.

“Ultimately, I think, it’s about transcendence.”

The book, which Jonathan Goddard has read, and the film, which he hasn’t (yet) seen, differ in their endings; Goddard will not be drawn as to the ballet’s ending, except to say:

“The idea is that mind and body come together after that kind of fracture.”

And asked to sum up A Single Man, the ballet, Goddard says:

“It’s all refracted through people that it actually has some kind of meaning for. I think Isherwood would like that.”

(Banner image credit: A Single Man, Rick Guest)

A Single Man plays at Aviva Studios, Manchester, 2 – 6 July 2025. Tickets here

Jonathan Goddard dances George on 5 July, and Jim in all other dates.

A Single Man is at the RBO Linbury 8 – 20 September 2025. Box office opens on 2 July – tickets and info here

Jonathan Goddard dances George on 9, 10,1 3, 17, 19 September and Jim on all other dates.