William bracewell

Superb: Ruination, at the Linbury Theatre, reviewed

Ruination begins with an ironic prologue in which a choric figure warns the audience that what follows makes unlikely matter for the festive season: look elsewhere if you’re after light entertainment, he says, because this is going to shake you up a bit. And it does. This is genre-defying physical theatre, ‘devised’ by Ben Duke, in which spoken text is combined with episodes of dance and interludes of song, playfully satirical in tone and uprooted from any boundaries of realism or historical period. Although it is somewhat pretentious, I pretty much loved it The choric figure is Hades, and his realm of death is the setting. Jason and Medea have

Demanding but exhilarating: Royal Ballet’s Encounters reviewed

After opening its 2024/5 season with a run of Christopher Wheeldon’s candy-coloured, kiddie-friendly Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Royal Ballet gets down to business with a demanding but exhilarating programme of new work. Newish, to be accurate; the evening’s only previously unseen piece is Joseph Toonga’s Dusk. Crystal Pite’s The Statement is eight years old and was previously seen at Covent Garden in 2021; Kyle Abraham’s The Weathering followed a year later; and Pam Tanowitz’s Or Forevermore has developed out of a duet that originated during the pandemic. Dusk and The Weathering call for little comment. Both are well-crafted and safely generic, elegiac in mood and unassertive in theme. Dusk

At last some genuine gala material: Royal Ballet’s Balanchine and Robbins reviewed

The OED defines ‘gala’ as ‘a festive occasion’. In the ballet world this usually translates as a handful of stars, a mile of tulle and more triple fouettés than you can shake a stick at. Most balletgoers could put a half-decent programme together in their sleep: a firecracker duet (Swan, black), the odd solo party piece (Swan, dying), a dash of romance (Romeo, Manon) and the dear old Don Q. pas de deux. After a year being drip-fed small-screen ballet, the prospect of a little bling and bravura generated a buzz of excitement around Dame Darcey Bussell’s charity gala. The Hall (Albert) was hired, sponsors were found, eight major companies