Exhilarating, frightening and hilarious: Made in Leeds – Three Short Ballets reviewed

Good, better, best was the satisfying trajectory of Northern Ballet’s terrific programme of three original short works, which moves south to the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House at the beginning of November. The company has a new director in the amiable Federico Bonelli, formerly a principal with the Royal Ballet, and he has several problems to address, not least the shortage of richly characterful dancers among the senior ranks. But this triple bill should boost everyone’s morale, and the audience at the Leeds Playhouse was enthralled.

First up was Wailers, Mthuthuzeli November’s elegiac return to the world of his childhood in a parched South African township. Bourréeing on pointe with bells round their ankles, a mother and grandmother preside benignly over a brood of boisterous children. Its sincerity verges on the mawkish, but the overall effect is not without charm.

Next came Stina Quagebeur’s Nostalgia, a harder-nosed venture into the knots of couples therapy.