Christopher Isherwood’s second life on stage

Predicting which writers of the early 20th century would speak to the 21st, few would have bet on the survival of Christopher Isherwood. Not bombastic genius WH Auden, who gave his name to the loose collective known as the Auden group. Not Stephen Spender, who consciously pronounced on social ills. But the observer in the corner, the quiet Isherwood.

It helps, of course, that he has a world-beating musical in the shape of Cabaret based on his writings. Yet there’s something about Isherwood’s tone – the honesty of his description, the sharpness of his observation – that continues to resonate.

This is particularly true of his masterpiece, A Single Man, a study of grief written in 1964. It describes middle-aged George, an English professor at a west coast university, as he tries to get through a single day while being poleaxed by sorrow at the death of his long-term lover, Jim. Because his sexuality is secret, his sadness cannot speak.

The novel goes beyond the specific, towards the universal, catching the overwhelming nature of loss. It inspired a chilly 2009 film directed by Tom Ford, starring Colin Firth, and now a much more interesting dance piece by choreographer Jonathan Watkins.

This incarnation opens with a searingly truthful image, embodying in movement a world of pain. Former Royal Ballet principal Ed Watson rocks slowly on the spot, arms outstretched from boxy shoulders, bending forwards as a constricted spasm of agony passes through his body. He seems literally immobilised by emotion.

On Chiara Stephenson’s clever set – a wall of white objects hanging from a frame, like a kit waiting to be assembled – a second figure appears within a large silhouette of a head. As Watson begins to move, the US-born, Icelandic-based singer John Grant starts to sing, seated high within that outline. His bulky stillness contrasts with Watson’s slender vulnerability; their different ways of expressing thought and feeling catch the juxtaposition of George’s body and mind; one going through his daily routine with a semblance of normality, the other full of deep, dark thoughts.

It’s a bold conceit in a stylish, sophisticated piece, held together by Jasmin Kent Rodgman’s jazzy score, played from the back of the stage by the Manchester Collective – full of mournful saxophone and bright, sharp activity as action unfolds alongside memory. A 13-strong ensemble of dancers double as the students and friends filling George’s time and as a visual representation of his mood, with a repeated motif of a yoga-tree pose suggestive of Isherwood’s Buddhist practice.

As George walks through campus, a bouncy tennis match becomes a homoerotic fantasy of grappling bodies. When he unexpectedly goes for a life-enhancing swim with Kenny (James Hay), the student he meets in a bar, the dancers become the waves, holding their bodies aloft. Kristen McNally – in red turtleneck and hot-brown skirt in Holly Waddington and Eleanor Bull’s evocatively textured costume designs – appears as George’s friend Charley, another lost soul just about surviving. Their gestures towards each other are full of hesitant affection and edgy misunderstanding.

Watkins’s choreography is thoughtful and inventive, playing with the tensions inside the work. Watson is one of the UK’s finest dramatic dancers; Jonathan Goddard, who haunts the narrative as Jim, is another. Their duets together are full of aching tenderness and great sensuality, each coming together tinged with the joy of discovery and fulfilment and the melancholy foreshadowing of parting.

Grant’s lyrics and his growling baritone grapple with the intricacies of George’s thinking and Isherwood’s meaning. “This moment is where life abides.” The ending is more sentimental and less mysterious than the novel’s, but still moving. A gesture of hopefulness amid the darkness, love among the ruins; an echo of Isherwood’s essential humanity.

A Single Man was performed at The Hall, Aviva Studios, Manchester