Queen of flamenco

A frail old woman sits alone on a chair on a darkened stage. There are flowers in her hair. She closes her eyes and the small, wrinkled hands begin to clap. The rhythm seems simple at first but her feet take up the beat, deconstructing it, multiplying it, embroidering it into fresh miracles of speed and precision. The packed house holds its breath until the rattling feet gradually dwindle to the gentlest percussive purr then stamp to a halt.

A fresh explosion of sound — from the other side of the footlights this time — as Sadler’s Wells rises to its feet to welcome back La Chana (‘the wise one’), queen of flamenco, after an absence of 30 years.

The smiling woman I meet the next morning is neither as old (a mere 71) nor as grand as her stage persona suggests. She arrives with her modest entourage — assistant, manager, second husband — and accepts my posy of camellias with a fragrant hug.