Kenneth MacMillan
Welcome back to London City Ballet – but can they please change their name?
There’s sound thinking behind this summer’s resuscitation of London City Ballet – a medium-scale touring company popular in the 1980s…
Lost in space
My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s…
Flesh and fisticuffs
Being of a squeamish sensibility and prejudiced by a low opinion of recent BBC drama, I can claim only a…
Cut and thrust
Sneer all you like at its prolixities and vulgarities but Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling remains a ballet that packs an exceptionally…
Just the ticket
Last week I attended a dance performance in person for the first time since March last year. If you’d asked…
Hello, goodbye
Ballet lovers driven square-eyed by a drip feed of livestreaming and archive footage have been pining for the patter of…
Two by two
Mothballed since March when it danced a farewell Swan Lake, the Royal Ballet made a triumphant and joyous return to…
Manon can be magnificent, this one was merely meh
Manon: minx or martyr? There are two ways to play Kenneth MacMillan’s courtesan. Is Manon an ingénue, a guileless country…
A masterclass of menace and magnificence: Romeo and Juliet reviewed
Two households, both alike in dignity. Capulets in red tights, Montagues in green. Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet opens in…
Almost triumphs over the absurdity of its premise: Northern Ballet’s Victoria reviewed
Blame Kenneth MacMillan. The great Royal Ballet choreographer of the 1960s, 70s and 80s was convinced that narrative dance could…
One nasty moment aside, the ENB’s Manon is superlative
If you like the BBC’s Les Misérables, you’ll love English National Ballet’s Manon. Manon, in Kenneth MacMillan’s telling, is The…
January as you would wish it: Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs reviewed
The Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs is January as you would wish it. No slush, no new-year sales, no streaming chest…
Why Mayerling is a #MeToo minefield
Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling is a #MeToo minefield. Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary is a serial seducer, a man of many…
How do these Shaolin monks square six shows a week with monking?
The Shaolin monks are no strangers to the stage. Their home in Dengfeng is a major stop on the Chinese…
Emotional intelligence
The difference between a poor ballet of the book (see the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein) and a good one — indeed…
Sex on legs
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Notes on a scandal
How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer…
Wherefore art thou Romeo?
You always remember your first time, don’t you? And in ballet one imagines that Juliet wants to remember her first…
Gutted!
There was blood on the walls and floor at the birth of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965. The…
The long goodbye
There’s been a clutch of middle-aged danseuses taking leave of life in one way or another recently. We’ve seen the…
Great Brittain
Jasper Rees talks to Shirley Williams about the forthcoming screen portrayal of her mother
Mademoiselle Non
On the eve of her retirement, Sylvie Guillem talks to Ismene Brown about legs, boobs and changing people’s lives
Tarts and Tchaikovsky
What can the Royal Opera House be insinuating about its target audience? No sooner had Anna Nicole closed than Manon…
Inspired by Bach
It appears that J.S. Bach’s music is to theatre-dance what whipped cream is to chocolate. Masterworks such as Trisha Brown’s…
