Scott Ambler

A lost man and a feral swan: it's an unlikely romance. Yet the dancer and choreographer Scott Ambler created a heart-stopping tragic hero in Matthew Bourne's landmark version of Swan Lake. Long-faced and lonely, gauche eyes staring wide, Ambler's prince was trapped in joyless royal routine and contemplating suicide when he stumbled across a moonlit flock of swans, played by an arresting cadre of bare-chested men. Ambler, who died unexpectedly aged 57, and the lead dancer, Adam Cooper, performed a wary, nuzzling duet - dangerous and romantic. Swan Lake was an immediate sensation when it premiered in 1995, touring the West End and Broadway and putting Bourne and his company (now called New Adventures) on the map. Ambler's prince was a wrenchingly layered portrait: unloved son, disregarded figurehead and adoring lover. His bereft, almost ungainly desire carried the show's mighty emotional arc: it is one of the indelible dance-acting performances of recent decades. Later, in his career as a theatre choreographer and movement director, Ambler set vintage athletes pounding in Chariots of Fire and fag-ash MPs cavorting in This House, and from 2009 he frequently worked with the director Rupert Goold. Their Merchant of Venice, relocated to Las Vegas, opened in 2011 for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford with a swivelling Elvis impersonator; JB Priestley's Time and the Conways achieved expressionist force. For Enron (2009), the cast visited the London Metal Exchange, noting the trading floor's jittery rhythms - described by the actor Samuel West as "somnambulance followed by 30 seconds of furious activity". Ambler built a restless vocabulary of greed without consequences, self-appointed masters of the universe arrowing around the stage. Born in Leeds, to Phillis and William Ambler, Scott went to John Smeaton high school in the city. A sports-struck boy, he came to dance late, at 19. To his surprise, he loved it, and was soon accepted by the prestigious Rambert School in Twickenham, south-west London. Graduating in 1984, he worked with contemporary companies such as the physical theatre company DV8 and Extemporary Dance Theatre before joining what was then Adventures in Motion Pictures in 1991. Bourne seized upon Ambler and the dancer Etta Murfitt when they entered an open audition; they soon became his closest collaborators, dancers of rare gleam and heft. Bourne says that Ambler "was instrumental in creating [the company's] unique style". Puckish yet poker-faced, he made an immediate impression in witty short works: snobby in The Percys of Fitzrovia (1992), furtively cruising a Parisian pissoir in a revival of The Infernal Galop (original production, 1989), and playing a buttoned-up gent in Town and Country (1991), eyes downcast over his needlepoint yet finding discreetly full-hearted romance. It was touching to see this tall man lay his head on another's shoulder, soulful and trusting as a red setter; the same poignant gesture recurred in Swan Lake. As Bourne's works grew in complexity, so did Ambler's roles. James in Highland Fling (1994) was a befuddled Glaswegian who abandons home comforts for supernatural pleasures, finally reduced to haunting the life he left behind. Ambler's buttocks flashed from under his kilt ("we could never get him to put on his underwear," Bourne remembers). He also had a good line in spiteful brats, in Nutcracker! (1992) and Cinderella (1997), but his roles aged as he did, encompassing a gallery of failed husbands and fearsome fathers. All sneer and avarice as the Dickensian orphanage proprietor in Nutcracker!, he was also the sad-sack pig of a husband in The Car Man (2000), a padded belly swelling his vest, battered nightly with a monkey wrench. He made you realise exactly why it would be grim to be married to him - but how equally miserable it was to be him. Ambler drew you inside his characters' skins, locating a vulnerability that seeped through even the most grotesque and sinister psyches. This was especially apparent in Play Without Words (2002) at the National Theatre, where multiple-perspective mind games play out in swinging London. Based on Joseph Losey's film The Servant, it was made in just four weeks and lacked a finale by the first night. "We had to keep the audience outside while we finished it," Ambler recalled. Yet Bourne considers the manipulative valet Prentice, cosseting and conning his young employer, to be Ambler's greatest performance - a superb display of surreptitious control until Prentice himself was wrong-footed, the predator feeling himself a fuddy-duddy. As with all New Adventures productions, the cast immersed themselves in the gestures and physicality of old movies. By now associate artist of the company, and having assisted Bourne on My Fair Lady (2000) and South Pacific (2002) at the National Theatre, Ambler displayed a flair for helping bodies carry atmosphere and ideas that led to his second career as a choreographer and movement director. Ambler was, according to Goold, "full of contradictions" - a bold physical presence with a sensitive skin. Passionately committed to his work, he often burst into tears while giving notes. After a career in high-definition costume, he preferred soft plaid shirts, hair tangling amiably down his neck. Goold celebrated him as "a great, great teacher who loved seeing people express themselves through movement". His kindness towards non-dancers made him the ideal leader of Lord of the Flies for New Adventures in 2011. It proved a life-changing project, as he and the company's male dancers mentored lads with little or no dance experience: initially in Glasgow, and then in 12 other British cities. Every body holds a story - as a dancer or teacher, Ambler had an unmatched gift of making the stories sing. Bourne acknowledged Ambler's contribution to the company by crediting him as its founder artistic associate. He was survived by his sister, Jackie, his nephews, Gavin and Russell, and his great-nieces, Charlie-May and Sophie.