(c) 2017 Chantry Dance Company Reproduced with kind permission of the company
Move It, which takes place at the Excel Centre between the 10 and 12 March 2017, is billed as the UK's biggest dance event with "over 24,500 dancers – three days – performances, classes, career advice, celebrities, interviews and shopping!!"
I was there last year and described the day in MOVE IT 2016. My verdict on the day was:
"There are worse ways of spending a Sunday afternoon and I did pick up a free copy of The Stage and Dancing Times with a great article by Gavin McCaig in Talking Point which I read over an overpriced burrito but it was not a cheap afternoon out."
This may sound like damnation by faint praise but it is not really. There was a lot to see and do. The trouble was that almost everything I had most wanted to see had already happened by the time I arrived. Also, the open ballet class which was the only one that I felt able to do was fully booked.
Clearly, Friday and Saturday are the best days to come to MOVE IT. Friday is out for me because it is a working day and even balletomanes have to eat. I could not make Saturday last year because I was on my way to see the Chelmsford Ballet Company's The Sleeping Beauty. I regret that I won't be there on 11 March this year because that is the day Kenny Tindall's Casanova opens in Leeds.
One of the performances that I missed last year was a piece by Chantry Dance Company and Chantry Dance School. I am a friend of the company and I like its work. A video of its performance appears in A Good Month for Chantry Dance26 March 2016. The company and school will be there again this year. Rae Piper will conduct a contemporary ballet workshop at 15:45 and members of the school and company will also be on the main stage at some time during that day. We wish them chookas, toi, toi, toi and anything else that does not offend theatrical superstition.
One person that I did get to meet at Move IT last year was Christopher Moore who directs Ballet Theatre UK. I am a big fan of his company for two reasons. First, I take my hat off to them for producing two or three full-length ballets every year and taking them to small town and suburban venues the length and breadth of the kingdom. They provide a first taste of ballet for many people, including a lot of children. I like to think that at least a few of those kids will find their way onto the stage one day. The company has just finished Romeo and Juliet which I reviewed in Ballet Theatre UK's Romei and Juliet15 Jan 2017 and it has already started another tour with a new production of Giselle. Alice in Wonderland follows Giselle and The Nutcracker will follow Alice. The second reason I like Mr Moore is that he has given work to several graduates of Ballet West and any friend of Ballet West is a friend of mine.
Ballet Theatre UK now has a school and its students were also on stage at MOVE IT last year. You will find a video of their performance on thefamousbelgian's YouTube channel. Wishing them all the best too.
Ballet Theatre UK Romeo and Juliet Theatre Royal Wakefield, 14 Jan 2017, 19:30 I have been blogging about Ballet Theatre UK for nearly three years and have reported their performances of The Little Mermaid (see Pure Delight - BTUK's Little Mermaid in Southport27 Apr 2014), Swan Lake (see The Bedouin of Ballet12 Dec 2014), Aladdin (see Ballet Theatre UK's Aladdin5 Apr 2015) and Pinnochio (see Pinnochio6 June 2016). It is a troupe of some 14 talented young dancers who create two full-length ballets a year which they perform in small and medium town and suburban auditoriums the length and breadth of the country. Each of those ballets is choreographed by their founder and artistic director, Christopher Moore and is either an adaptation of a well-known work such as last night's Romeo and Juliet or a folk or children's tale like last season's Pinnochio. Through that work, Ballet Theatre UK introduces high-quality dance to audiences whose only other experience of ballet might be a show on BBC 2 or BBC 4 around Christmas or an end of term review by kids from a local ballet school. There is a complete absence of gimmickry in Moore's productions. His Romeo and Juliet, for example,is set firmly in renaissance Verona and his costume designer, Daniel Hope, has obviously spent time and trouble on researching the period in order to produce the most elaborate and what to my eyes at any rate are historically accurate representations of the elaborate headgear that might have been worn by Lady Capulet, Paris and Juliet's nurse. Phillip Moore's set consisted of a simple classical arch which, when combined with some imaginative lighting design by Russ Marquis, transported us effortlessly from the town square of Verona, to Juliet's boudoir, to her parents ballroom, to her balcony, to Friar Lawrence's chapel, the square again, the bedroom and finally to her tomb. All of those costumes and props will no doubt be dismantled and packed in the vehicle that will convey last night's show from the county town of the West Riding to Horsham in sunny Sussex.
The audience that saw last night's show got a lot for their money. As the crowd included a fair sprinkling of children I should imagine ballet teachers and dancewear shops the length and breadth of the country owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Christopher Moore and his dancers for inspiring an endless supply of new pupils and customers all of whom will be in the market for tights, shoes and snazzy new leotards. Indeed, it may not just be children in the market for such kit as adult ballet classes are sprouting like mushrooms everywhere as I noted in Back to Class8 Jan 2017. Those teachers, retailers, studios and theatres would probably be willing to advertise if Ballet Theatre UK would take advertising.
So Christopher Moore and his talented young dancers perform an important public service not just to dance itself but also to education, retailing and possibly even public health in getting kids and possibly some adults off their backsides and onto the barre. When the time comes for giving gongs I hope the powers that be remember him.
It is vital that this company keeps going but it is not obvious how they manage it. If they get anything from Arts Council England, which seems to have plenty of dosh for projects that seem to be much less worthy, Ballet Theatre UK don't mention it on their website or in their sumptuously designed and printed, but singularly uninformative, programmes at £5 each. They appeal for corporate giving and sponsorship on their website but if they get any they keep quiet about it. There is an acknowledgement of some 22 individual donors on the last page of the programme some of whom bear the names or at least the surnames of creatives and dancers in the company. The only advertisement in the programme is for The School of Ballet Theatre UK.
Ticket and programme sales will bring in some revenue but it can't be that much. The Theatre Royal Wakefield, which is a beautiful Victorian venue with a glorious history (see Theatre has a rich history22 Aug 2097 Wakefield Express), seats only 499 punters. Although yesterday's turnout was not bad there was more than one empty seat.
Of the five shows by Ballet Theatre UK that I have seen since I started this blog, this was by far the best. I think it helped that I knew the story backwards. By contrast, Aladdin and Pinnochio were not the easiest ballets to follow.
However, I think a lot of credit must go to the dancers and in particular to Isaac Peter Bowry who, like me, is a Mancunian (see Born to be a star: Wythenshawe dancer Isaac, 16, on the road to ballet success12 Oct 2012 Manchester Evening News). Yesterday was not the first time I had seen Bowry in a major role. I mentioned him in my very first post for his performance as Drosselmeyer in Ballet West's "The Nutcracker"on25 Feb 2013, again when he danced von Rothbart the following year (see Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 20143 March 2014) and Paris the year after that in Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet1 Feb 2015. He impressed me when he was a student and again last night. I am delighted that he has found a home in Hinckley. He is a naturally talented actor as well as a strong dancer.
His glazed expression after seeing Juliet for the first time at her parents' ball was priceless.
Laia Ramon, his Juliet, also acted and danced well. Alistair Beatte handled a sword adroitly as Mercutio as did Lucien Vecchienelli who danced Tybalt. Claire Corruble, the only name I remember from the last time I saw the company, danced Lady Capulet with passion. Dominic Who portrayed her husband as not a very nice man threatening Lady Capulet as well as Juliet with a clout at one point. All danced well.
I can't tell you much about anyone in the cast except Bowry because there were no biographies in the £5 programme and the information on the dancers' page of the company's website is "coming soon" - and has been for several months. That's a pity because Gita likes to name "a man or woman of the match" but can't identify her nominee. All she can say is that it was "that tall slender girl."
Ballet Theatre UK inspires a lot of loyalty. The mother of one of its former dancers describes the company as "fine". Another former dancer who is a Facebook friend wrote "enjoy" when I announced I was on the way to the theatre. A subscriber to Balletco Forum who identifies him or herself only as a Nottinghamshire ballet lover contributed a glowing review of the Chesterfield show to that website. As I said above, friends and family of the company, members as well as the dancers and creatives themselves have donated. It is clearly a cause worth supporting.
Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Theatre UK, Pinocchio, Rotherham Civic Theatre, 4 June 2016 With perfect timing Ballet Theatre UK performed Pinocchioat the Rotherham Civic Theatre on the very afternoon that the English Defence League were demonstrating in the town centre thereby distracting 800 officers from all parts of South Yorkshire from their normal duties (see South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council grateful for disorder free demonstrations4 June 2016). Even though their demonstration is likely to have deterred many from venturing into Rotherham to see the show the company's excellent young artists still managed to attract a better audience than the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators combined which says a lot for BTUK and also a lot for Rotherham.
I have always had a lot of time for BTUK who regularly bring fresh, new full length ballets to small auditoriums the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. The Birmingham Royal Ballet has its midscale tours of three theatres in the North and Midlands and three in the South and West Country every May in order to bring ballet to new audiences. Last year Northern Ballet started to do the same with Madame Butterfly and are doing the same right now with Jane Eyre. BTUK however do that sort of thing all the time. Between 25 March and 19 June 2016 they will have performed Pinocchio in 36 venues often covering enormous differences with a few hours. For instance, between 1 and 5 June they will have travelled between Peterborough, Solihull, Great Yarmouth, Rotherham and Buxton. I have reviewed several of BTUK's shows (see Pure Delight - BTUK's Little Mermaid in Southport27 April 2014, The Bedouin of Ballet12 Dec 2014 and Ballet Theatre UK's Aladdin5 April 2015) and I know from the buzz in the bars that their performances are very much appreciated.
The story of Pinocchio is about a puppet that comes to life which when you think about it is not all that different from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which Liam Scarlett has recently turned into a ballet (see Rarely have I been so impressed by a new ballet19 May 2016). However it is a lot less dark than Frankenstein though it is at least as complicated. Like Frankenstein the story focuses on what distinguishes a human from an intelligent machine which, of course, is also a theme of Coppelia. It is remarkable how three 19th century stories all of which have been transposed into ballet have something to say about artificial intelligence now that our technology is on the point of delivering it.
Because the story is complicated it is difficult to follow the ballet without a synopsis and because I arrived at the theatre just seconds before the curtain rose I did not get mine until the end. The only part of the story I could remember was that Pinocchio was made of wood and that his nose would grow whenever he told a lie. Although I could recognize a fox and a cat I became hopelessly confused by the blue fairies, the circus, the schoolchildren and the signpost pointing to "School" in one direction and "Fun" in the other. Now that I have read the synopsis it all makes perfect sense.
The ballet starts off with a romantic scene that reminded me a little of Bournonville's Napoli. David Brewer is the craftsman Gepetto and Ines Ferreira is his bride. I followed the bit where she died and came back to life as a blue fairy. I also followed the construction of the puppet and his awkwardly coming to life. Although I could recognize Emma Miller as a fox, Pedro Santos as a cat and Amy Keenan as some kind of insect (she turned out to be a cricket) and that they had been waylaid by Vincent Cabot and Charlotte Laura Eades in a circus it was not obvious to me what the school kids (especially the punchy little boy Lampwick danced by Sarah Mortimer) had to do with the story until after the performance.
If, as is likely, the company have children in mind, the choreographer might consider some sort of narration or voice over as Ballet Cymru did for Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs or English National Ballet's My First Coppelia. Aprogramme does help a lot but even if I had received it before the show I would have needed time to digest the complicated plot. Not all children's ballets need narration. Ballet Black's Dogs Don't Do Ballet gets by without one. But this one does.
Nevertheless, Pinocchio is a gorgeous show with great sets by Martyn Plant and costumes by Daniel Hope. The music is beautiful and Christopher Moore's choreography is delightful. The ballet is coming to the end of its travels but you can still catch it at Horsham, Stourport, Middlesbrough, Chesterfield, Margate, Exmouth or Neath. Whether you are young or old, ballet newby or ballet snob, you should try to see this work. It is the best I have seen from BTUK to date and I am now a bigger fan of this great little company than ever.
Oh and just a word about Rotherham. It is a great place for fantasy. There is a "magical apothecary" in the town centre called Grimm & Co. from which humans are excluded. I kid you not. Rotherham is a great little town and that's just the sort of fantasy and fun its kids and grown ups need. Not the politics of fear and hate.
The last time I saw Northern Ballet's Swan LakeI felt quite deflated. It was my birthday too and I felt as Vlad the Lad must have done after his mum and I beat him at snakes and ladders in the best of three on his birthday. We still had Tchaikovsky's majestic music. The dancing was superb. But the story and settling were quite different. I beetled down to London at the first opportunity to see the Royal Ballet's production. It was several years before I ventured back into the Grand for Northern Ballet.
Since then I have seen Grigorovich's production, Christopher Moore's and of course Matthew Bourne's so I am more receptive to the idea that there can be different versions of that great ballet. I am therefore rather gingerly giving Northern's version a second chance. It is starting in Leeds between the 3 and 12 March before wending its way to Milton Keynes by way of Sheffield and Norwich.
If my feelings about it don't change I still have David Dawson's for Scottish Ballet to look forward to. They are coming to Liverpool on 1 June. Now that will indeed be a treat.
One of my favourite ballet companies is Ballet Theatre UK, They have some lovely young dancers: David Brewer, Ines Ferreira and Sarah Mortimer to name just three. They work incredibly hard travelling sometimes hundreds of miles for one or at the most two performances and then back on the road again. Look at their tour dates for their Autumn and Winter tour: Coventry on the 23 Oct (the company's website says the 25 by the way), Wimborne on the 24 and Bognor on the 25. And yet when they come on stage they seem fresh and full of energy.
By touring the small towns and suburbs of the UK they are bringing ballet to an audience that would never otherwise see it. Yes I know that the Birmingham Royal Ballet splits into two and tours some of the smaller venues of Northern and Southern England (see Vaut le Voyage - Birmingham Royal Ballet in Shrewsbury28 May 2015 and Birmingham Royal Ballet in High Wycombe31 May 2015) and that Northern Ballet has just completed a tour of smaller theatres with Madame Butterfly (see Nixon's Masterpiece22 May 2015) but these talented and incredibly resilient young men and women do that sort of thing all the time. Through their work they are removing some of the elitism and snobbery of ballet for which I for one am extremely grateful. To appreciate why that's important, read For Emma28 April 2014 an article that I wrote after their visit to Southport.
In order to draw an audience the company's artistic director Christopher Moore bases his ballets around well known stories. Ballet Theatre UK performed The Little Mermaid in Spring 2014 (see Pure Delight - BTUK's Little Mermaid in Southport27 April 2014), Swan Lake (albeit with a radically different libretto to take account of the size and structure of the company which annoyed some people but not me) last Autumn and Winter (see The Bedouin of Ballet12 Dec 2014) and Aladdin earlier this year (Ballet Theatre UK's Aladdin5 April 2015). This time the company is reviving The Snow Queenwhich is based on Hans Christian Andersen's well known fairy tale.
I have no doubt that this show will draw in the crowds from Coventry to Yeovil and I shall see them on one of their transits from the North but I do have a plea to Mr Moore as a reviewer. Please - pretty please - type out a cast list for each of your venues and get the local Staples to run off as many copies as you've sold tickets. It'll only cost a few quid and it will pay dividends in audience (and critics') goodwill. It really will. Also the dancers will be acknowledged - and these fine young men and women deserve to be acknowledged. Up to now I have been relying on the mother of one of the dancers to give me the cast lists but she is a busy lady with her own dance classes (see There's more to Harpenden than Thameslink17 May 2015). Alternatively, invest in an easel and pin up the names in the foyer as Matthew Bourne's New Adventures does.
Ballet Theatre UK also has a school which I shall discuss in a future post. One day I hope to meet Mr Moore and learn more about his vision and ambition for the company. If you have not yet seen this company do go to one of their shows. I have not yet met anyone - including grizzlies like me who can remember Fonteyn and Fracci - who has not left the theatre in which they have performed on a high.
"BTUK is no ordinary company. It has a punishing schedule. Before coming to Southport it had danced a matinee and evening at Dunstable on the 22 April, an evening show at Tamworth on the 23, a matinee and evening at Keswick on the 24 and an evening at Runcorn on the 26. Today it crosses the Ribble to Blackpool and on 1 May it comes to Rotherham and then on Peterborough on the 2. I counted over 66 different venues throughout the British Isles. This show has quite elaborate scenery and props and sumptuous costumes. Bearing in mind that the dancers must find time for company classes, rehearsing their next production, eating and drinking, some kind of family and social life as well as travelling, I take my hat off to them."
Last night BTUK returned to Southport to dance Swan Lake and I was in the audience to welcome them.
I have to start by saying that with the exception of Matthew Bourne's (see "Swan Lads - Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Bradford Alhambra 4 March 2014"5 March 2014) this was the most unusual Swan Lake that I have ever seen. It was very much shorter - two acts instead of the usual three or four. Different dancers danced Odette and Odile and in this version Odile turned out not to be all bad. Nobody gave Siegfried a bow. He simply got lost in the woods looking for Odette. Instead of cygnets there was a pas de quatre - that is to say two men and two women and not just four girls with arms linked in lock step. Siegfried and Odette already knew each other at the start of the ballet. We see Rothbart turn Odette into a swan so that he could offer Odile to Siegfried as a bride. Siegfried is not deceived by Odile's appearance but is influenced by the same sort of drug that Puck used to make Titania fall in love with a donkey in Midsummer Night's Dream. Thiswas not the only balletic allusion that the choreographer, Christopher Moore, used. Odile wielded a sword just like Giselle in the mad scene before she plunges it into Rothbart's body. And there is a sword fight in Act II just as in Romeo and Juliet. Instead of the lovers plunging into the lake to break Rothbart's spell there is a happy ending which would have pleased Joseph Stalin.
Not everyone likes the reworking of this plot. Yesterday, one of the members of my ballet class warned me that BTUK "had murdered Swan Lake." When I asked her what she meant she replied that the music was still there "but precious little else." It is true that some important bits of the ballet are missing - most notably Legnani's 32 fouettés and the Venetian dance though the czardas and the Spanish dance survived - but the ballet still worked. In fact, I have to congratulate Moore on his adaptation of this ballet for the exigencies of touring.
If BTUK were a traditional company with principals, soloists, coryphées and corps it might have been possible to run the traditional version of Swan Lake but this is a touring company where all the dancers are of approximately the same age and experience and each of them is allowed a go at the leading roles. This production was engineered for a young company constantly on the move. Hence my nickname for them: "the Bedouin of Ballet".
My only criticism of the show is that BTUK never publish cast lists though they do sell a very glossy souvenir brochure for a fiver. Towards the back of the brochure there are biographies and thumbnail photos of the dancers. It is always difficult to recognize on stage faces in a programme because of the lighting and make-up but I was told by the programme seller I mentioned in my Little Mermaid review that Nathalie Cawte was Odette, Claire Corruble Odile, David Brewer Rothbart and Vincent Cabot Siegfried, They and indeed everybody in the company danced beautifully and deserve to be commended.
Tomorrow the company are performing in Cannock. They are spending the weekend in Warwick. Then on to Dorchester and Newbury before a well-earned Christmas break. This company is taking ballet to every nook and cranny of the British Isles introducung the art to new audiences just as Peter Brinson's Ballet for All did in the 1960s and 1970s. They all deserve our gratitude and there are many ways we can repay it through their support page.
Yesterday evening I saw Ballet Theatre UK ("BTUK") dance The Little Mermaidat The Atkinson in Southport. This was the first time I had seen BTUK and my first visit to The Atkinson and i was impressed with both. I left the theatre on a high (as I always expect to do) eager to see more of both.
BTUK is no ordinary company. It has a punishing schedule. Before coming to Southport it had danced a matinee and evening at Dunstable on the 22 April, an evening show at Tamworth on the 23, a matinee and evening at Keswick on the 24 and an evening at Runcorn on the 26. Today it crosses the Ribble to Blackpool and on 1 May it comes to Rotherham and then on Peterborough on the 2. I counted over 66 different venues throughout the British Isles. This show has quite elaborate scenery and props and sumptuous costumes. Bearing in mind that the dancers must find time for company classes, rehearsing their next production, eating and drinking, some kind of family and social life as well as travelling, I take my hat off to them. An hour's class alone takes it out of me. Admittedly I am a lot older than the dancers and very new to ballet but a couple of hours on stage is still hard work requiring considerable concentration and stamina even for a young man or woman with years of training.
The company is also remarkable in that it has an extensive repertoire choreographed largely by its artistic director Christopher Moore. These include an Aladdin but not David Bintley's, A Christmas Carol but not Christopher Gable's, an Alice in Wornderland but not Christopher Wheeldon's as well as old favourites such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty. I googled Christopher Moore but all I could find was the blurb on BTUK's website stating that he had trained at Tring and had danced professionally all over the world in many different productions. Clearly, the company is ambitious. It has established a school in Hinckley with Daria Klimentova as its patron and, according to its website, its guest tutor. In many ways BTUK reminds me of the London Festival Ballet in the 1960s when I first took an interest in ballet. I think BTUK is going places and I am not just referring to the tour schedule.
Yesterday's performance was lovely. First, it was a good story based closely on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. In the programme Christopher Moore wrote that on the first day in the studio the company faced two rather large challenges one of which was
"would we use the original ending written by Andersen and used in the book's first edition, or would it be better to have a happier ending similar to the one used by the Walt Disney company in the classic 1989 animated film!"
In the end after much deliberation Moore and the company chose to stick with the original and I think that they were right to do so because it made for a much more interesting story and gave the character of the little mermaid some depth.
Having lost out on one Faustian pact with the sea witch she was offered another. The first agreement allowed her to come on shore with legs but only on condition that she should marry the prince whose life she had saved. The downside was that she would perish if she failed. The terms of the other pact were that she could return to the sea as a mermaid if she killed the prince who had rejected her.
Now that presented the mermaid with an interesting moral dilemma. At least some of the audience would urge her to accept the offer and kill the prince in order to save herself. Some would say that the prince had it coming for his ingratitude to the one who had rescued him. However, she decided to sacrifice her life in order that he might live. As Hans Christian Andersen tells us that mermaids do not believe in an after life, accepting instant annihilation in order to do the right thing is even more of a sacrifice than it would be for a human,
Secondly, the ballet had a very good score. I don't know how much of it was original. I recognized the Geordie ditty about a little fishy when the boat comes in as well as some sea shanties from the last night of the proms and an ear worm that was never off Uncle Mac's Children's Favourites in the 1950s but which I can't for the life of me remember/ However, it all fitted together very well indeed and I found myself humming bits of it to myself on the long drive back from Southport.
I have already mentioned the scenery, props and costumes which was yet another aspect of the ballet that I liked. Comparisons are odious and I have already cut out lots of references to The Winter's Tale but lengths of fabric have far more in common with waves than large land mammals. After being hauled half way round the kingdom and back one would expect the sea backdrop and the wedding dresses to look a bit tired by now but they were still fresh. And they really wowed the audience.
However, it was the dancing that I really loved. Now that there is a very remote possibility that I may perform in public at the end of June I am treating every ballet performance as an extra lesson. In this lesson I learnt a lot about port de bras. That is the most appealing aspect of Moore's choreography. There was drama as the mermaid painfully discovered her legs and was forcibly accustomed to human ways, How she grimaced and struggled in the bath, especially as the soles of her soles were scrubbed. All that added yet another dimensions to the ballet. How do people born without legs get used to them and begin to walk?
The programme came without a cast list and that was my only grip of the evening. I asked a gentlemen in a BTUK tee shirt who was selling programmes where I could get one.
"Oh we never give them out" he replied.
"But I want to review this show for my blog," said I. "Can you tell me who danced tonight?"
"Was the mermaid blonde or brunette?" the programmer enquired.
"Brunette, I think but under the lights with all that makeup ......"
"Oh it must have been Sarah" he said.
I looked at my programme and it did indeed look like Sarah Mortimer: but it was not until I returned home and looked up a post on BalletcoForum by someone I know only as Hfbrew that I could be sure. According to Hfbrew
"Sarah Mortimer as mermaid (the beautiful mermaid on the poster) , Luca Verone as the prince,Jessica Hill as sea witch and Natalie Cawte as princess."
All of them danced well as indeed did the whole cast.
When looking up Sarah Mortimer I noticed that she had trained at Ballet West in Taynuilt near Oban. I know a little bit about the school having seen its pupils and teachers perform "The Nutcracker"and Swan Lake. I have also visited the village in which it is located and rejoiced at its success in the Genée. I was delighted to see that not just Mortimer but also Joseph Mackie-Groves and Charlotte Eades studied at Ballet West. I am delighted that students of that school who are hundreds of miles from Floral Street, Tring, Birmingham, Leeds and even Glasgow are establishing themselves in their careers. I wish them and indeed all the dancers from every other ballet school and company every success.
Finally, I should like to say a word or two about Southport in general and the Atkinson in particular. Southport is a town that I should know better than I do because my father was born there. Apart from two forays to its county court when I was starting out at the Bar and one weekend at a party conference when I was on the committee of the party's lawyers' association I have never had much to do with the town. That is a pity because it has an excellent fish restaurant, the smallest pub in England, a lawnmower museum, an elegant thoroughfare called Lord Street (happily being restored to its Edwardian glory), a dance shop called Centre Stage and a magnificent arts complex all collectively known as "The Atkinson" of which the theatre forms part. The best thing about The Atkinson is that it has pictures and exhibits to admire during the interval as it is an art gallery, museum and library as well as a theatre.
Yesterday the theatre seemed to be packed. There was barely an empty seat in the house. We started at the slightly unusual time of 18:00 which worked out very well. Dining in time for a 19:30 start really is a little too early for most folk and after 22:00 (always supposing restaurants are open at that time) is a little too late. An early start meant that the show finished at a reasonable time for supper. It was not too late for young children - of which there were many - and it allowed me to navigate the somewhat, twisty roads of rural Lancashire in daylight. Maybe other companies and theatres should try an 18:00 start if they can.
PS
The reason why Hfbrew was able to give me accurate casting for last Saturday is that her son dances with the company. She did not identify him and I won't guess but if he was dancing on Saturday he did very well. I wish him and the others in the company all the best. If he cares to read "For Emma" he will see that I was not the only one who was bowled over by Saturday's show.
