Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

Some day their prince will come

Matthew Ball is perhaps the Royal Ballet’s missing prince – he’s tall, handsome, thoughtful, a subtle actor, but does he have the charisma?

issue 01 December 2018

The Royal Ballet is a company in search of a prince. It has no lack of dancing princesses. You could search the kingdom and find no lovelier dancers than Marianela Nunez, Lauren Cuthbertson, Francesca Hayward, Natalia Osipova, Akane Takada, Sarah Lamb, Laura Morera and Yasmine Naghdi. But a true prince is as rare as a golden egg. Since Sergei Polunin went so energetically awol in 2012, the Royal Ballet has lacked a male principal with all four virtues of the leading man: classic handsome looks, height, faultless technique and some gift as an actor. Polunin had it all. He was dishy, dashing and dangerous. He had a fifth quality, too: seductive, flaring charisma. The company was less without him, and he lost without them.

Edward Watson is unmatchable: dark, fierce, magnetic, but at 42 is a little lined for Romeo. Thiago Soares is powerful, piratically good-looking, but more brave than refined.

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