Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet Revisited

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Northern Ballet Romeo and Juliet Leeds Playhouse 20 Jun 2025 19:30

Few people, if any, understood Romeo and Juliet better than Christopher Gable.  He and Lynn Seymour had been selected by Kenneth MacMillan to premiere the title roles in MacMillan's new ballet.  They were replaced by Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn only because the US impresario Sol Hurok thought that American audiences would flock to see Nureyev and Fonteyn in preference to Gable and Seymour. I saw both Nureyev and Fonteyn and Gable, and Seymour in the late 1960s or early 1970s. While I admired Nureyev and Fonteyn very much, I preferred Gable and Seymour in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet.

Many years after the premiere of MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, Gable became the Artistic Director of the company now known as Northern Ballet.  He commissioned a new version of Romeo and Juliet for his company, choosing Massimo Moricone as his choreographer and Lez Brotherston OBE as his designer. Unlike the productions of Krzysztof Pastor and Sir Matthew Bourne, Gable's Romeo and Juliet follows Shakespeare pretty closely, though it has its own features.  Each act begins with a clap of thunder.  The second act ends with the fall of a beaded curtain representing a hailstorm.  Gangs of Capulets dance as cats making soft mewing sounds, while the Montagues present as birds. Mercutio's death throes are quite different in Gable's ballet from his agonies in MacMillan's, where he mistakes a sword for a musical instrument. Juliet witnesses the sword fight between Romeo and Tybalt in Gable's version.  I saw Gable's ballet in Sheffield on 4 Apr 2024 and reviewed it in Moriconi and Gable's Romeo and Juliet the next day

I watched Gable's Romeo and Juliet again at Leeds Playhouse on Friday, 20 Jun 2025.  One big difference between the performance that I saw in Sheffield last year and last Friday's is that the cast danced to Northern Sinfonietta last year, but to a recording by the Orchestra of the Slovak National Theatre on Friday.  I have to say that I liked the sound of the Slovak orchestra very much.  If a company has to dispense with live musicians, a recording of the Slovak National Theatre musicians was probably the next best choice.  But ballet is a three-way communication between dancers, musicians and audience.  Something is lost when a conductor and orchestra are absent.

    

Romeo was danced by Joseph Taylor on Friday.  He is currently the company's only premier dancer.  It goes without saying that he would have understood his role well.   He performed it with virtuosity and flair.  Juliet was Alessandra Bramante, who happens to be Italian.   She brought a freshness and energy to that role.   Mercutio was danced again by  Jun Ishi.   He first came to my attention in that role last year.   I was impressed with him then, and I remain impressed this year.   Harry Skoupas was a menacing Tybalt this year.  Last year he had been Paris.  Harriet Marden was a passionate Lady Capulet, 

At the reverence, several members of the audience rose to their feet.   I counted 20 dancers at the curtain call.   That's not a big cast, but they gave the impression of a big full-length production. 

Moriconi and Gable's Romeo and Juliet

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Northern Ballet Romeo and Juliet Sheffield Lyceum Theatre 4 April 2024 14:00

Northern Ballet has two fine productions of Romeo and Juliet in its repertoire.  One was created by Jean-Christophe Maillot which I reviewed in Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way on 8 March 2015 and Romeo and Juliet after the Shrew on 15 Oct 2016.  The other was choreographed by Massimo Moricone and directed and devised by Christopher Gable.  Moricone and Gable's was premiered in 1992 to considerable critical acclaim but it had not been performed for many years.  It was revived in Leeds last month and is now on the second stage of a nationwide tour.  I watched the matinee performance of the ballet in Sheffield yesterday.

There are many different versions of Romeo and Juliet in the world's ballet companies Some like Lavrovsky's and MacMillan's follow Shakespeare quite closely.  Others like Pastor's and Sir Matthew Bourne's leave Shakespeare way behind.  Moricone and Gable's followed the play faithfully as can be seen from the "Romeo & Juliet Story" page on Northern Ballet's website but there were some original details that enhanced the understanding of the story.  In Juliet's bedroom, the nurse reminds Juliet that she is growing up by pointing to changes in her body.  In Act II Mercutio is provoked into challenging Tybalt because Tybalt drags a young woman by her hair.  I do not know whether those touches were suggested by the choreographer or director but Gable will have developed an intimate understanding of Romeo and Juliet from dancing the lead role with Lynn Seymour in MacMillan's work.  

Yesterday's cast included both premier dancers of the company as well as my first choices for the lead roles. When I had the opportunity to learn Juliet's dance at KNT's choreographic intensive in 2016, our teacher Jane Tucker, who had danced in  the same production of the ballet,  set the scene as follows:

"You are 12 years old. This is your first ball. You are so excited you can hardly contain yourself. All eyes are on you. You want everybody to be you."

I have seen many Juliets in my time including Fonteyn and Seymour and while they have dazzled me I have never been able to think of them as 12-year-olds.  Sarah Chun did remind me of that little girl bubbling with excitement and playfully teasing her nurse as she prepared for that first grown-up ball,  Similarly, Jonathan Hanks with his youthful features was ideally cast for Romeo.  In the play, those kids grow up almost overnight and so did Chun and Hanks in the ballet.  They are both remarkable dance actors.  I really warmed to them.  I see that in her bio Sarah Chun said that Juliet would be her dream role.  Yesterday, she lived that dream and she was brilliant.

An important role but one which is often discounted is the nurse or as we would describe her nowadays the nanny.  She appears in all three acts and she has to project all kinds of emotions from playfulness in the first bedroom scene and she romps around with her young charge to fear as she tries to protect Juliet from her grief-stricken and angry parents.   Her role was danced by Harriet Marden. She has been in the company for some time and I must have seen her countless times but this is the first time I have mentioned her in my reviews but I am sure it will not be the last. I shall now be looking out for her.  She showed considerable talent as a character dancer.  I loved the way she crossed herself before she grabbed Juliet's note from between the thighs of one of Romeo's buddies.

It was a treat to see Abigail Prudames, one of my favourite dancers in the company. I have watched her progress through the company's ranks with great satisfaction.  She danced Lady Capulet with exceptional energy and passion.  Her anger upon learning of Tybalt's death in his duel with Romeo was palpable.

Tybalt was danced by Joseph Taylor (another artist I have long admired) who portrayed his character perfectly.  Having met him in real life I know that he is anything but the privileged, headstrong, thuggish young blade who received his comeuppance after bullying young women and knifing Mercutio when he was off his guard but Taylor projected that character faultlessly,  He is a great dance-actor as well as a virtuoso.

One other artist who deserves special mention is Jun Ishi who danced Mercutio.   Again this is the first time that I have mentioned that artist in my reviews but it will not be the last as I shall follow his career with interest in the future.  The audience gasped with relief as he rose to his feet after the stabbing.  We relaxed as he took a swig from a bottle.  We despaired as he sank lifeless to the floor.

Everybody in the cast performed well and if I mentioned every member by name this review would resemble a telephone directory.  All I can do is to congratulate everyone in the show on a magnificent spectacle.

It was of course not just the dancers who made it a good show.  I have already mentioned Gable and Moricone but I should not forget John Longstaff  There were several details in the music which reinforced the story which I had not noticed in other productions.  I am not sure whether the peel of thunder immediately before the overture was part of the orchestration or Gable's direction.  I was a little discombobulated when I first heard it but it made perfect sense in the context of the hail storm at the end of Act II. 

I must also praise  Lez Brotherston's designs.   The opening scene featured a fragment of the maxim "Amor vincit omnia" which of course is the theme of the ballet.  Love did not quite conquer all from the point of view of the young lovers though maybe it did eventually in the embrace of Lords Capulet and Montague just before the curtain fell.   I learnt for the first time from the programme that many of the costumes from the original show had been destroyed or damaged in the flood.  I know that Peter Pan had been lost but I was not aware that Romeo and Juliet had also been affected.  It required a major effort to restore the ballet and it says a lot for a company that undertook that work.

I first got to know Northern Ballet Theatre when Christopher Gable danced with Moira Shearer in The Simple Man.  Some of my favourite works were created while Gable was the Artistic Director of the company and I have always regarded that time as a golden age,   It gives me great pleasure to see Romeo and Juliet again and I am very much looking forward to watching A Christmas Carol in November.

Another Look at Victoira

Author: Rasiel Suarez
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Source Wikipedia Queen Victoria 

Northern Ballet Victoria 6 April 2019 Curve, Leicester

"How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!"  The Oxford Essential Quotations attributes that remark to A Laugh A Day Keeps the Doctor Away by the American humorist, Irvin S Cobb which was published in 1924.  It is said to have been overheard at a performance of Antony and Cleopatra in which Sarah Bernhardt played Cleopatra.

The conversation is probably apocryphal but the reason why the quotation is remembered is that the home life of Queen Victoria was unremarkable.  Of course, there was sex.  How could it be otherwise with 9 children? But it was almost certainly within marriage notwithstanding speculation over her relationships with John Brown and Abdul Karim.  Queen Victoria gave her name to an age of momentous cultural, economic, political, scientific, social and technological change throughout the world but, as a constitutional monarch, she had very little to do with any of that.

According to "Creating Victoria" in the programme the idea of a ballet about Queen Victoria was David Nixon's.  He asked Cathy Marston whether she would be interested in making such a work, Evidently, someone mentioned the TV series for Marsrion spent part of a weekend watching a recording of the series before deciding to accept.

To make a full-length ballet about a home life that is a byword for respectability and normality must have been something of a challenge. Marston responded to that challenge by selecting incidents from the queen's life that she had recorded in her diary.  Those incidents were presented not as they had happened but as they had been perceived by Princess Beatrice upon reading her mother's diary for the first time. An impression was given that some of those incidents bordered on the scandalous for there were for there were several scenes where Beatrice tore pages from the diary.

On the whole, I think Marston's approach worked well, particularly in the second act.  There were moments of great beauty such as the passionate duet of the queen and prince consort towards the end. There were also some comic moments such as the childbirth scenes with Mlindi Kulashe delivering baby after baby.  Some of the scenes in the first act were still lost me even though I had seen them before and had read and digested the synopsis.  Someone - I could not work out who it was - drew a revolver and shot John Brown. I could find no reference to that in the synopsis.  It certainly did not happen in real life for Brown died in his bed in Windsor.  I had a vague recollection from my criminal law studied that Queen Victoria survived an assassination attempt because it was from that incident that we have got the M'Naghten rules but it seems to have nothing to so with that. I concluded that the assassination must have been an analogue for character assassination. There were several other analogues in the piece such as the ritual kissing of the queen's feet.

The cast I saw in Leicester was almost the same as the one I saw in Leeds (see A Great Send-off for a Great Lady 17 March 2019).  Abigail Prudames was the queen, Joseph Taylor the prince consort, Pippa Moore was Beatrice and Kulashe doubled as John Brown as well as an obstetrician.  All the cast danced well but I particularly enjoyed their interaction with a curious piece of furniture that I can best describe as a Victorian round sofa and their tussle over the red dispatch boxes.  Everybody in the show danced well and it would be unjust for me to select any for special praise,

Steffen Aarfing's set worked well.  A semicircular structure doubled as a gallery in a palace and the stacks of a library.   I am not quite so satisfied with the costumes.  The queen's white gown with its blue sash was effective. The red and cream costumes of the corps were less so.  Philip Feeney's score was pleasant enough. It was said to be derived from the music of the period.   I am sure that must be so but I struggle to remember a note of it even though I have heard it twice.

Though the auditorium was far from full the audience seemed to appreciate the show.   There was some cheering and the curious masculine growls that one sometimes hears in live streaming from the Bolshoi and even Covent Garden.   Several folk in the stalls rose to their feet which does not happen quite so often in England as in other countries.  I think Northern Ballet can chalk up Saturday evening's performance as a success.

The ballet's tour continues to Edinburgh, Cardiff, Milton Keynes and Belfast and it will be streamed to cinemas throughout the nation on 25 June 2019.  I think it is worth seeing and probably more than once since I appreciated it more the second time around.   Marston is a master of her craft and while I still prefer The Suite and Jane Eyre I appreciate Victoria.   Her many fans (of whom I am one) can look forward to her Snowblind which the San Francisco Ballet will bring to London at the end of May and beginning of June.  We will have another chance to see The Suit in Birmingham in September

A Great Send-off for a Great Lady

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Northern Ballet Victoria, Leeds Grand Theatre, 16 March 2019, 19:30

Victoria may have been the title rôle but the star of last night's show was Pippa Moore who danced Princess Beatrice. That is not because the ballet is really about someone other than the character in the title like Coppelia or Don Quixote.  Queen Victoria has a very substantial role in Cathy Marston's ballet and it was danced beautifully by Abigail Priudames whom I admire greatly. But last night was the night the company and its audience said goodbye to Moore who is, for the time being, Northern Ballet's last remaining female premier dancer and one who enjoys great respect and affection.

At the end of the performance, Moore was presented with an enormous bouquet of flowers. Something that does not happen very often outside London (see Flowers for Dreda 9 June 2018). David Nixon came on stage and gave the best speech that I have ever heard him make (I have heard more than a few from him over the years) and handed Moore a picture of herself as Beatrice. I am a hard-bitten patent lawyer and I have seen some great moments in the theatre but I could feel the tears welling up inside me. Several members of the audience including yours truly rose to out feet.  Just as well that the curtain fell when it did because I am not sure for how much longer I could have contained my emotions.

The show in which Moore and Prudames danced was Cathy Marston's Victoria, a co-production between Northern Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. The score was by Philip Feeney and the sets and costumes were designed by Steffen Aarfing.  There was some stunning choreography in the ballet of which the duets between the queen and John Brown, danced by Mlindi Kulashe, and the queen and Prince Albert (Joseph Taylor) were perhaps the most striking. I was particularly struck by the invocation of the saltire as the queen splayed her arms in open fifth and legs second in defence of Brown.  There were other touches that I loved like the relevés to convey excitement when Victoria met Albert for the first time.

However, regular readers of my blog will by now have sensed a "but" coming.  I cannot deny it is there but I don't want to exaggerate it.  Victoria was still a work of considerable merit.  I am a great fan of Cathy Marston even though I have not seen much of her work on stage. Most of her works that I have seen have been on YouTube.  When I saw Jane Eyre in Richmond in 2016 I described it as "the best new ballet from the company in 20 years." I think I was even more impressed with The Suit when I saw it for the first time (see Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018). Though I admired it very much, Victoria did not have the same effect on me as Jane Eyre or The Suit.

I have asked myself "why?" as there was a lot of good in this ballet.  I think the weakness lies in the libretto.  This was a very complex story but I don't think that was the main problem.  It is never easy to create a ballet around a recent historical figure as Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Anastasia shows.  The only choreographer to have pulled it off in my humble opinion is Ted Brandsen with his Mata Hari  (see Brandsen's Masterpiece 14 Feb 2016). I think he succeeded because he kept the story simple with hardly any flashbacks, unlike Anastasia and Victoria.  Had I not read the synopsis I would not have had a clue as to what was going on and I think that would have lost me.

My only other criticism (and it is a minor one) is of the costumes for the corps.  They were clad in a stripey top and what appeared to be a red skirt for dancers of both genders.  From row P of the stalls, they looked like a crocodile of schoolgirls on an outing.  When I read the programme properly on the train to London later this morning I shall probably discover the significance of that apparel.  All I can say that it was less than obvious yesterday.

But this was still a magnificent evening. I would not have missed it for the world.  It is still a fine ballet and Cathy Marston is still one of my favourite choreographers.  I saw Anastasia when it was first staged in 1971 and have never had a desire to see it again. Unlike Anastasia, I am going to give this ballet a second view.   I am sure it will go down well at Sadler's Wells. It has already had a good press.  I have very heterodox tastes having no time whatsoever for The Favourite despite its many awards and nominations.  So see Victoria for yourself. Don't let my niggles at the plot and costume designs put you off

Northern Ballet's "The Nutcracker" - All My Favourite Artists in the Same Show

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Northern Ballet  The Nutcracker  12 Dec 2019 19:00 Leeds Grand Theatre

Northern Ballet does a very good version of The Nutcracker.  I have seen a lot of productions of that ballet in my time and, in my humble opinion, it is one of the best. Having said that, I can think of no good reason why David Nixon has to change the names of the Stahlbaum family to Edwards and Northern Ballet really must do something about the backdrop which is supposed to be a wall and bookcase but flaps like a flag if anyone gets too close to it. But I can forgive all that because everything else is good.

Wednesday's performance was particularly good because nearly all my favourite artists from the company were in the show.  They did not all have major roles.  Javier Torres who was my dancer of the year for 2017 was Mr Stahlbaum (or Edwards if you must) and the exquisite Hannah Bateman was Clara's grandmother.  Rachael Gillespie, of whom I can never see enough, was Clara. Abigail Prudames, another beautiful dancer, was Sugar Plum.  Gavin McCaig was in the ballet as the butler and also the Arabian divertissement.  My favourite of the evening was Mlundi Kulashe who played a blinder as Drosselmeyer.  He danced it with energy and verve in a way that I have never seen  it danced before,  Everybody in the show (and that includes the musicians) performed brilliantly.

In some versions of The Nutcracker, Clara (or Marie) is a child who does not have much to do beyond bopping the mouse king with a shoe or some other blunt instrument.  In Nixon's version, she handbags him Thatcher style.  She also performs some duets in the snow scene and again in the second act with the Nutcracker (Ashley Dixon) and joins in some of the divertissements. Rachael is a joy to watch and Nixon displayed her like a precious jewel.

The climax of the ballet is, of course,  the Sugar Plum's pas de deux with her cavalier. On Wednesday he was Joseph Taylor.  The high point for audiences is the celesta solo just as Legnani's 32 fouettés are in Swan Lake or the rose adagio in The Sleeping Beauty.  Everything else may be perfect but if something goes wrong with one of those pieces the rest is forgotten. Abigail Prudames thus bore the weight of the performance in that solo and she carried it off beautifully.  Taylor is a powerful dancer and he was thrilling to watch.

Nixon does a particularly good fight scene between mice and toy soldiers.  Riku Ito was a particularly gallant regnant rodent expiring stoically after Rachael's handbagging.  Nixon has a cavalry in his production which is one up on Sir Peter Wright and Peter Darrell's productions.

In the second act, Itu performed the Spanish dance as a solo. That was different.   It is usually danced by an ensemble though Northern Ballet School also presented it as a solo in Christmas at the Dancehouse.   I liked the Arabian dancers (Matthew Topliss, Natalia Kerner and Gavin McCaig), the Chinese (Kevin Poeung and Harris Beattie) and the Russians (Conner Jordan-Collins, Matthew Morrell and Andrew Tomlinson); The Russian dance was a big role for those three young dancers two oi whim are still apprentices,.

There are also a lot of roles for children in The Nutcracker as guests at the Stahlbaums' party, mice and soldiers.  Two of my teachers had daughters in the show though I am not sure whether either was dancing on Wednesday night.  All the kids performed well that night and were a credit to their ballet mistress who in previous years has been Cara O'Shea.

The show will run at the Grand until Sunday and I strongly recommend it.

Jane Eyre Second Time Round

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Northern Ballet Jane Eyre 13 April 2018, 19:45  Lyceum, Sheffield

The first time I saw Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre I described it as "one of the best new ballets I have seen all year from any company and it is the best new work from Northern Ballet for many years if not decades" (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016). I saw it again in Sheffield on Friday and I am still of that view.

Jane Eyre is a very long read.  It consists of 38 chapters and was first published in 3 volumes.  There is a good summary of the story in Wikipedia.  Although it cannot have been easy to compress a book of that length into a two act ballet, Marston preserved its essence in her libretto.  Most of the characters of the novel are reproduced in the ballet.  Marston has also invented a set of male characters called the "D-men" who are danced by some of the company's most experienced members. They haunt Jane at critical moments of her life.  In that regard, they perform a role similar to that of the chorus in Greek drama.  I noticed a similar use of such characters in The Suit (see Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018).

Many of the dancers I saw at Richmond in 2016 were in Friday's performance in Sheffield though some had different roles. Dreda Blow danced Jane as an adult on Friday as she had two years ago. Jane as a girl was danced by Rachael Gillespie who had been Adèle last time.  Victoria Sibson, who had been Bertha Mason in Richmond, was Aunt Reed in Sheffield. However, there was a different Rochester.  Joseph Taylor performed that role on Friday.

Each and every member of the cast performed well.  Blow is the only Jane I know.  The last time I saw her I wrote:

"Blow is a fine dancer but I have never seen her dance better than she did tonight."

I can only say the same about her performance on Friday.  Taylor delivered a confident and convincing performance as Rochester.  Gillespie is one of my favourite dancers in the company and her portrayal as the young Jane did not disappoint me.  However, the performance that impressed me most in Sheffield was Mariana Rodrigues's as Bertha.  She makes only a couple of brief appearances but her role is a key one.  The attempted bigamy scene has a lot in common with the mad scene in  Giselle and if she is ever cast as Giselle I should be very interested to see what she makes of it.  I think she is an artist to watch and I will make a point of looking out for her.

Once again I admired Patrick Kinmonth's sets - especially the Pennine backdrop with its dry stone walls. Also his costumes, especially Bertha's ragged dress.  The more I hear of Philip Feeney's music the more I like his work. He also wrote the score for The Suit  which was another successful collaboration with Marston.

I concluded my review of the performance in Richmond with the hope that the ballet would be revived as I had hoped to see it again.  I am very glad that Jane Eyre is back in Northern Ballet's repertoire and that it has been staged in major venues this time.  I am particularly glad that it is coming to the Wells and Lowry for I think it will do well in both of those theatres.

Nixon's Little Mermaid - Perhaps His Best Work Yet

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Northern Ballet The Little Mermaid 19:15 2 Dec 2017 Sheffield Lyceum

In 2017 in Retrospect 7 Jan 2018 I chose Northern Ballet as my company of the year because of its three, new, full-length ballets:

"These were Kenneth Tindall's Casanova which I had expected to be good and was not disappointed (see Casanova - "it has been a long time since I enjoyed a show by Northern Ballet as much as I enjoyed Casanova last night" 12 March 2017 and Casanova Second Time Round 7 May 2017). Daniel de Andrade's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which I did not expect to like at all but was moved deeply (see The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - "an impressive work that was danced splendidly by Northern Ballet" 10 Sept 2017) and David Nixon's The Little Mermaid which I have yet to review but is, perhaps, his best work yet."

Here is my promised review.

There are many reasons why I liked The Little Mermaid. First, the libretto which follows Hans Christian Anderson's story closely. Secondly, the score. I applaud Nixon's commissioning Sally Beamish who had also composed the music for David Bintley's work, The Tempest (see The Tempest 9 Oct 2016). Thirdly, his casting which provided an opportunity for Abigail Prudames and Joseph Taylor to shine in leading roles.  Lastly, but by no means least, I admired Kimie Nakano's sets and costumes very much, particularly the underwater scenes in the first act.

The quality of this ballet that impressed me most was the detailed study of the mermaid's psyche,  She exchanged a carefree life below the waves with friends and family for an excruciating and lonely existence on land.  She gave up all that she had for the love of a human.  She did that not once but twice.  She had an opportunity to sink a knife into the prince who had spurned her and thereby return to the sea as a mermaid.  An opportunity that some women would have seized willingly even without the reward of personal transformation. Instead. she chose a path that she thought would lead to self-annihilation.

Much was demanded of the dancer who was to perform that role.  It had to be one of the company's younger members for the mermaid, like Shakespeare's Juliet, was on the cusp of adulthood. Also like Juliet she had to project a range of emotions, some conflicting as she grew up almost overnight,  Prudames was impressive in that role. Earlier in the year I had seen her in the preview (see First Impressions of the Little Mermaid 27 July 2017).  I noted then:

"I also liked some of the extracts, particularly the solo when the mermaid. danced by Abigail Prudames, discovers her new legs. Stranded on the shore she experiences pain for the first time. Prudames communicated that sensation chillingly. Much as Edvard Munch does in The Scream."

Three months on and after several weeks of  performances on tour she was even more impressive.

Though less is demanded of the male lead emotionally, the audience has to understand why the mermaid was prepared to sacrifice so much for him.  He has to be magnetically attractive, dashing and handsome. Taylor showed all of those qualties and more. Brave in the storm and compassionate on finding a beautiful, solitary. voiceless young woman on the shore,  Though captivated by her dancing he remained faithful to his bride.

The bride was danced by Dreda Blow, one of the company's leading soloists. A pretty role that she performed delightfully.

Other important roles were the lord of the sea (Matthew Topliss) who supplied the potion that transformed the mermaid into a human being as well as the knife by which she would have changed back, the mermaid's sisters, Ayami Miyata and Rachael Gillespie, two of my favourite artists who are always a pleasure to watch and the mermaid's affectionate and faithful friend, the seahorse, Kevin Poeung, another dancer whom I like a lot.  The corps had important tasks in the ballet, as sea creatures (or, in some cases, as bearers of such creatures), as sailors, fishermen and villagers. Altogether it was a very polished performance.

I had enjoyed the extracts from Beamish's score in the preview.  Having heard the whole work I liked it even more than her music for The Tempest.  I particularly liked the Celtic allusions that Beamish inserted subtly much in the way that Løvenskiold had done in his score for La Sylphide. There were Scottish or Irish echoes in the men's kilts (plain material without tartans) and in the human characters' names: Adair, Dana and Brina.

This production will visit the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh between the 22 and 24 March 2018. I shall be interested to know what a Scottish audience makes of the kilts and Beamish's score. It will then move on to Milton Keynes (close to two of the company's most devoted fans) in April and round of its tour at Leicester in May. No new full length works this year but with tried and tested favourites like Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre and The Nutcracker the company can expect another good year.

Much Less Beastly - Indeed Rather Beautiful

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Northern Ballet, Beauty and the Beast, Leeds Grand Theatre, 17 Dec 2016, 19:30

To my great delight and surprise, I enjoyed every single moment of David Nixon's Beauty and the Beast. Delight is obvious. Ballet is expensive. One goes for a good time - not to be bored out of one's skull. Surprise? Well that is because I saw the ballet on 30 Dec 2011 and while I was not exactly bored I was not in rapture either:

"As for Nixon's choreography the first two acts reminded me of early McMillan - works like Anastasia which are not performed very often nowadays for a reason. But the last Act reminded me of Balanchine and I think it was that Act which saved the ballet. The pas de deux between Beauty - danced exquisitely by Martha Leebolt - and the beast showed just what the choreographer can do. Also impressive were Victoria Sibson and Hannah Bateman who danced the fairies, Hironeo Takahashi, the beast's servant and the coryphées, Michela Paolacci, Ayana Kanda, Christie Duncan and Isabella Gasparini who were four sprites. The last Act of the ballet could well stand as a work in its own right. I hope to see that Act many times again but I would happily skip the first two acts with its old bus and bailiffs" (see Ballet and Intellectual Property - my Excuse for reviewing "Beauty and the Beast" 31 Dec 2011 IP Yorkshire).

Funny how something like an old bus can make such an impression.  Sir Matthew Bourne's curtain climbing Aurora sent me up the wall in his Sleeping Beauty (see Why can't I be nicer to Matthew Bourne? 6 Apr 2013) and it took The Car Men to bring me down again (see Motoring 25 June 2015). Similarly, bikes on stage belong in Ashton's Enigma Variations - not in Swan Lake (see Up the Swannee 17 March 2016).

The old bus was still there last night but I didn't mind it at all.  I could appreciate its part in the story. True, bed and breakfast accommodation or a flat on the top but one floor of a tower block where the lift does not work and stairwells are strewn with syringes and reek of urine might be a more usual destination under the Homelessness Act 2002 but, hey, this is theatre. Surely a choreographer or dramaturge is entitled to some poetic licence. Except for placing the story in the present with bailiffs, a removal van and, of course, the old bus Nixon kept pretty close to de Villeneuve's story which is essentially Cinderella in reverse with Carabosse and the Lilac Fairy and dashes of King Lear thrown in for good measure (see Beauty and the Beast Story on Northern Ballet's website).

So why the change of heart second time round?  Well, it helped that some of my favourite dancers were in the show.  Ayami Miyota was Beauty and Mlindi Kulashe a most magnificent beast.  Joseph Taylor was the handsome Prince Orian or the beast before he was taught some manners by La Fée Magnifique danced by the striking Victoria Sibson who also performed that role when I last saw that ballet 5 years ago. Abigail Prudames, another of my favourites, danced La Fée Luminaire (the good fairy) delightfully. Hironao Takahashi, who had danced Alfred 5 years ago, was Beauty's father, a good choice, in my view, because Takahashi has acquired gravitas and dignitas with seniority.  Alfred, or the beast's faithful retainer, was danced by Matthew Koon.  Yet another of my very favourite dancers, Rachael Gillespie, danced one of Beauty's feckless sisters. The other was Mariana Rodrigues who also danced well.  Indeed, everybody did last night so congratulations to all.

I think the choreography has also changed a bit. The show seemed tighter, tenser and more dramatic. Apparently, 20 minutes has been cut. A conclusion reached on Friday night by me and Janet McNulty after a lengthy correspondence on Facebook over whether the ballet had three acts in 2011 or just two as it has now.  Janet insisted that it had two even though I distinctly remembered two intervals and wrote that there were three acts in my review less than 24 hours after seeing the show.  Janet seemed so sure and she will have seen the show several times in 2011 as well as several times more on this run. I feared early signs of senile dementia 5 years ago until my mind was put at rest by one of Janet's friends who found the 2011 programme which mentioned three acts.  I can't remember exactly what has been cut and, clearly, neither can Janet but all the good bits remain, The joyful duet between Beauty and Orian with its fish dive at the end. The beast's thrilling one-handed lift with Beauty spreadeagled several feet above the ground. The amusing dance of the goblins (Matthew Topliss, Jonathan Hanks, Jesse Milligan and Lorenzo Trosello. Equally amusing little touches like Beauty taking tea from a cup while the bear lapped up his from the saucer like a dog.

Beauty and the Beast will be at The Grand until the 7 Jan 2017. I am glad to recommend it.  There seem to be quite a few seats available for most performances although the theatre was quite full last night.  While the best Christmas ballet this year remains Ted Brandsen's Coppelia for the Dutch National Ballet by a country mile and Peter Wright's version of The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden is definitely #2, Beauty and the Beast is still a good one. I saw glimmers of the old Northern Ballet Theatre more than once last night.

Romeo and Juliet after the Shrew

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Northern Ballet Romeo and Juliet, Alhambra, Bradford 14 Oct 2016, 19:30

I have to be frank. It was the Bolshoi who sold me my ticket to Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet last night with their exquisite performance of The Taming of the Shrew at the Royal Opera House in the summer (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016). It was they who turned me into a Maillot fan (see Jean-Christophe Maillot 5 Aug 2016 and World Ballet Day: Les Ballets de Monte Carlo 10 Oct 2016).

Had it not been for the Bolshoi I think I would have used my precious ballet going weekend to see Ballet Black last night and then hop on a train to London to see the matinee performance La Fille mal gardee today. No disrespect to Northern Ballet which is a fine company but I had already seen its Romeo and Juliet twice last year (see Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015 and Leebolt's Juliet 13 March 2015). Fille is one of Ashton's masterpiece which is performed only by the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet and then not every year.

Now there is a lot of difference between the massive 240 year old company founded by Prince Ursov with all the resources of the Russian state and a mid-size 41 year old company in Leeds and I came to the Alhambra wondering whether I had done the right thing in letting Lise and Colas go for a year or so. I am glad to say that I think I did for Northern Ballet danced very well  last night. It was far better than either of the performances that I had seen in 2015 even though the cast was the same it was as the first time that I had seen the show.

Perhaps one of the reasons why yesterday's performance was so good is that they danced in the Alhambra before a Bradford crowd. From the theatre goer's point of view it is the best dance venue in Yorkshire and second only to the Lowry in the North. The Grand at Leeds is all very well but there are pillars and all sorts other obstructions to spoil the view, the bars are crowded and leg room in the cheaper seats is terrible. The Quarry at West Yorkshire Playhouse has none of those disadvantages but its capacity is limited to 750. I also find that a Bradford audience is generally more discriminating and appreciative. The Alhambra is on the circuit for world class touring companies like NDT II and Alvin Ailey. Also, they are that much closer to Manchester and thus more likely to see Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and other visitors to the Lowry and Palace.

The title roles yesterday were danced by Tobias Batley and Dreda Blow. Blow fits naturally into Juliet's role. As I said in Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way:

"She was a perfect Juliet. Playful and feisty. Loving but conflicted. Brave but fearful. Blow is elevated to my pantheon of favourites."

That was still my view of her last night. Batley has to work at Romeo.  We are used to seeing him as mature men such as Heathcliff, Marc Antony and Gatsby rather than as a callow, headstrong, teenage boy, but he did work at it and was quite convincing in the balcony and bedroom pas de deux. However, the most arresting scene was Lady Capulet's explosion of rage and that will be the image that I will retain from the show. Hannah Bateman was magnificent in that role. Also impressive was Mlindi Kulashi who portrayed Tybalt as a bit of a thug. Rather unusual perhaps but quite logical when you think about it. Antoinette Brooks-Daw won the crowd's affection as the loyal, long suffering, much put upon nurse. Abigail Prudames was an adorable Rosaline. At least three people including Romeo would still be alive had Romeo stuck with her. Joseph Taylor interpreted Friar Lawrence's role quite differently from Isaac Lee-Baker whom I had previously seen in that role. Maillot had invested some of the authority that in other productions is vested in the duke in the friar's role. Yesterday we saw Taylor as the guardian of the public interest crumble as the corpses piled up from his loss of control.

That brings me back to the reason why I was in the theatre. As I explained in  Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way Maillot's production is quite unlike Lavrosky's, MacMillan's, Nureyev's or any other production of Romeo and Juliet and that is because he has rewritten the play. He did very much the same even more successfully with The Taming of the Shrew.  He is now working on an interpretation of Midsummer Night's Dream called Le Songe which, despite using Mendelssohn, appears to be as different from Ashton's Dream as his Shrew is from Cranko's and his Romeo and Juliet from MacMillan's. The glimpses of the rehearsal on his World Ballet Day slots were tantalizing. Maillot appreciates Shakespeare and understands him but that does not stop him from taking the occasional liberty with him - and getting away with it.

Northern Ballet's Cleopatra in Sheffield

There are some ballets that have to be seen more than once to be appreciated fully. David Nixon's Cleopatra is one of them. I saw it in The Grand in Leeds on 6 March 2014 and reviewed it in  "Cleopatra - Northern Ballet, The Grand, Leeds 6 March 2014" on the 7 March 2014. Although I was impressed I was not bowled over as I was by Cinderella on boxing day (see "Northern Ballet's Cinderella - a Triumph!" 27 Dec 2013) or by Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas earlier this year (see "Lear with a Happy Ending - Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas 30 Jan 2014" 31 Jan 2014). I wrote: "This is a ballet that has to be seen more than once and probably many times to be appreciated fully."

Well, yesterday I saw Cleopatra again and enjoyed it so much more. I don't know whether that was because I had seen the ballet quite recently and knew what to look for or whether it was because I was more comfortable in the Sheffield Lyceum than I had been in Leeds and could concentrate on the performance. 

The Lyceum is in my humble opinion the best large theatre in Yorkshire allowing plenty of leg room, a good view of the stage from just about every point in the auditorium, spacious bar areas, efficient and courteous staff, ample parking across the road and plenty of reasonably priced eateries within walking distance. So much better than The Grand in every way. Why Northern Ballet does not make more use of The Lyceum - indeed why it dies not appoint it as its flagship theatre - beats me. For much of the day I have been asking on twitter and BalletcoForum why there isn't more ballet in Sheffield (a city region of 1.9 million and within an hour's drive of several million more) and I have yet to receive a convincing answer. As a Mancunian exile living in "Summer Wine Country"  with no axe to grind in Yorkshire rivalries I'd say that as a city Sheffield knocks Leeds into a cocked hat; but as I sport the red rose in inter-Pennine rivalries what do I know.

Anyway returning to the show, it was interesting to compare last night's cast with those who appeared on the 6 March 2014. On that occasion I saw Martha Leebolt for whom the role of Cleopatra had been created. Last night it was Michela Paolacci who interpreted the role quite differently. Now Cleopatra is not a nice lady. She marries and then murders her brother in his bath and she despatches Mark Antony with a chilling sauté but, whereas Leebolt's Cleo was as hard as nails, I somehow warmed to Paolacci's. I could imagine her defence counsel's plea of mitigation - a single mum, coming from a dysfunctional home, a victim of circumstances - all that sort of thing. For me the highpoint of the ballet is the confrontation of the fair Octavia danced brilliantly by Pippa Moore with Cleopatra over Mark Antony (Ashley Dixon). Octavia represents everything Western and decent while Cleopatra is sultry, sexy and degenerate. Of the other roles, Jospeph Taylor (who has only been with the company for a couple of years) was a great Wadjet, Hironeo Takahashi a convincing Caesar and Matthew Topliss (another recent recruit) a suitably imperious Octavian.

The cast three weeks ago was the company's first team. Last night provided an opportunity for Northern Ballet's promising newcomers, but yesterday's show was not in any way second rate. All danced well and all deserve to be commended. Even though I now know the ballet quite well I should still like to see it again. Too bad it is not to be staged outside Yorkshire this year. I do hope the company revives it again soon.