[1] The piece debuted in London in 2005 and, despite mixed reviews, has subsequently toured in Britain, Asia, the U.S. (earning a 2007 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience), Australia and Europe.

[2] In 2002, 2003 and 2005, he earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer for My Fair Lady, Play Without Words and Mary Poppins, respectively.

[11] The work "tells the gothic story of a boy, created by an eccentric inventor, trying to adapt to suburban life with only scissors for hands.

[13][14] "As portrayed by Johnny Depp 17 years ago in the movie by Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands was many things to many people: a wild child, an artist, a sex symbol, a freak, a killer through little fault of his own and finally the phantom of a love long lost.

As reborn in a new theater piece by Matthew Bourne, Edward is all these things and perhaps something more: the latest member of the select circle of semianimate figures who have found a lasting home in dance."

[18][19] Sam Archer and Richard Winsor alternated in the main role,[6][17][20] wearing a heavily elasticized costume with fiberglass blades and a thick leather forearm brace.

[11] In May 2008, an Australian national tour was launched at the Sydney Opera House (with New Adventures being the first British dance company to perform there with the production).

It was also announced that a screening of the production would be shown in cinemas across the UK and internationally for the first time from 25 September 2024 (after being filmed at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff in March).

The earliest review of the London production by The New York Times in November 2005 said that like the film version, "doomed love story remains bittersweet".

[30] On its Christmas 2008 return to England, The Times gave the show a positive review: "Matthew Bourne's adaptation of Tim Burton's 1990 film is one of the biggest and brightest of this season's glut of cultural ornaments.

"[14] The Independent's reviewer was critical, saying "Edward is more kids' cartoon than satire, with two-dimensional characters that stand a hair's breadth from cliché".

Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as a high point in his "Theatre Year in Review top 10", saying it was "invigoratingly choreographed and beguilingly designed".

[34] However, when analyzing the year from the entire Arts and culture perspective the Steven Winn (also with the San Francisco Chronicle) described the work as lacking, noting that its November run "fell well short of this show's [Swan Lake]'s inspired high mark" from March in the arts and culture year end top 10.

[35] Hurwitt stated at the beginning of the San Francisco run that "Where Bourne triumphs, with considerable help from Davies, Thompson and Brotherston, is in replicating Burton's delicately bittersweet whimsy in a manner uniquely his own.

"[10] Johnny Depp attended the December 30, 2006 show danced by Archer and signed a souvenir program for Bourne with the following partial inscription: "Trembled on the verge of tears, mate.

"[36] It was further panned in a more detailed review the following week by The New York Times Jennifer Dunning, who said "Mr. Bourne's "Edward Scissorhands" is mostly a candy-coated bore.