IT'S HARD not to admire a man who's prepared to push boulders up hills.

Especially if the hill in question was a major film corporation and the shoving took seven years.

Matthew Bourne is widely hailed as the UK's most popular and successful dance choreographer and director.

But he is also credited with reinventing the world's perception of dance theatre.

Bourne's dance world is tutu-free. His Car Man, for example, is a reinterpretation of Bizet's opera Carmen, but set in a sweaty, greased stained garage in the Deep South, where couples copulate on kitchen tables and in the back seats of cars.

Now, the dance theatre star has brought his hugely populist sensibility to Edward Scissorhands, the cult film by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp.

But Matthew reveals he had to battle to make it happen.

"I had to get permission from the creators of the film," he says, his voice recalling a weary sigh.

"I had to talk to the screenplay writer, the music creator, everyone. And the process took seven years.

"The problem was the film company had never given permission for it to be used in any way, whether a theme park ride or a McDonalds' promotion.

"And Tim Burton didn't really understand how it could all work; he didn't really see it as a dance theatre piece."

Thankfully, Matthew had his work to help illustrate his idea.

"Tim came to see Car Man, and he got it," he says.

"He knew what I was trying to do. And it all worked out in the end."

Matthew felt Edward was a theatre story that had to be told.

"When I first saw the film in 1990 a couple of things struck me; it had such memorable music that I felt should be danced to.

"And the music (by Danny Elfman and Terry Davies) was so beautiful, unforgettable and theatrical. But I loved the story of the outsider. I've always been drawn to stories like that.

"What's great about Edward is the hands are a metaphor for everyone who has something distinctive about them.

"It's a story that touches on bullying and prejudice. It's about how we treat people who are different in a community."

And of course Edward uses his scissors to be creative.

"Yes, he makes a virtue of what he has. But I also love the humour in the piece. And the social observations of the neighbourhood.

"As a result, Edward is very much like a Chaplin or a Buster Keaton silent movie star, an innocent, while so much goes on around him."

Perhaps one of the reasons Matthew is drawn to tales of outsiders, those who don't quite fit in, is because he was something of a square peg himself.

Growing up in East London borough Hackney in 1960 he came to dance very late.

"I didn't discover ballet or modern dance until I was 20," he says.

Was he advantaged bey coming to the business late on?

"Yes, definitely," he says.

"If I'd started training in dance really early, perhaps my life would have gone in a very different direction because I wouldn't have had all those interests and influences.

"It's my love of movies, of the likes of the Sound of Music, or Hitchcock, of theatre, of having lived a bit before doing this which has all contributed."

Even the posters for his shows are fun.

"I don't see the point otherwise," he explains of selling populism.

"I don't want the dance world to be po-faced and grand. I want people to come and see it and enjoy it.

"And I want audiences to understand the world they are in.

"Unfortunately, the word 'dance' or 'ballet' can put people off."

The five-time Olivier Award winner has won lots of people over in the past 20 years. And Edward Scissorhands has already enjoyed sell-out performances across the world.

But were there any specific problems in staging Scissorhands?

"Well, we tried to tell our own story," he says.

"The story we do has themes which aren't in the film. It creates its own world and it's set in the Fifties rather than the Eighties.

"Even Edward's costumes are different. But the main problem was the hands. When they expand the space they take up is huge."

He adds, smiling: "It's about avoiding him - just in case you get slashed."

l Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands, Theatre Royal, November 19-22.