MAB

Free newspapers: they now use the ink the comes off onto your fingers.

Ballet: Sweat & Tears.

They dance Fille very well in Paris; they see it from a different point of view but stay truer to the original than casts I've seen in London. It is possible to put a personal stamp on a role without distorting the choreographer's ideas. My great fear for ballet is that they will continue throwing their feet at the ceiling, endlessly posing and never getting out of first gear, the way the Russians are going (yes I know there are honourable exceptions, one is making her way to London), but is that really what modern audiences want to see? If anyone watched that RT documentary about Oksana Skorik last week, they'll know exactly what I'm alluding to.

The Dirty Duck: I imagine everyone who's anyone in the world of acting has been in for a drink at some time though looking at the website it's smartened itself up a bit from how I remember it. http://www.dirtyduck-pub-stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/

Reducing salt in food usually helps.

Married Royal? Sorry but I remember her as the last outstanding British dancer that the RB produced.

I somehow missed this blog by Ismene Brown that states that Pavel Dmitrichenko's lawyer is planning an appeal to Strasbourg over this case http://www.ismeneb.com/ismeneb.com/Blog/Entries/2013/4/26_Dmitrichenko_will_appeal_to_Strasbourg_against_custody.html What remains unclear is whether Russia recognizes any decisions made by a higher court. Pavel's trial has been put back to July, that is a very long time for a dancer to be confined. Interestingly the tone of Ms Brown's blogs are very different now from those when this story first broke, indeed the more one examines the story the stranger it becomes. Sadly the truth may never out as the notoriously corrupt Russian judiciary will back whoever pays the largest backhander. Perhaps the only ray of hope for Dmitrichenko is that the world's media has covered this story and people are looking at the obvious discrepencies in the evidence and drawing their own conclusions.

Burning the midnight oil tonight?

Exactly what is the point of quoting from and providing links to Russian language articles on an English language web site?

I always put the Danes in a separate category, every one is an outstanding dance actor; after all starting on stage so early they get most of their lives to perfect their craft. The character dancers that have left dancing behind astound me, a few years back Jiri Killian created a work for Jette Buchwald and Flemming Ryberg called Uden Titel # 1, it was just acting and a bit of movement from two very senior company members and was one of the most memorable things I've seen in the past decade. Last year I saw Ryberg teach mime to a group of students here in London - a privilege to watch such a superb artist.

If we can include dancers of the past then John Gilpin, Maris Liepa and Gediminas Taranda. Great applies to a miniscule number in my view.

Ignore the comments, Telegraph readers react in much the same way to just about everything.

Davis House: it is set back from the road a little on South End. The Davis Theatre was beautiful, rather Victorian and ornate inside, you can tell it was an important venue because the Bolshoi toured there in the 1950's.

I would say this is very expensive for this venue as the Palais de Congres is really huge - even bigger inside than the Palais de Sports, although you can see from all the seats the stage can seem miles away. Overpriced in my view.

Like dollyry I was taken to watch ballet while at primary school, I went to the old Davis Theatre in Croydon (now demolished to make way for a much needed office block) and saw Festival Ballet in Pas de Quatre, Harlequinade and Graduation Ball. I didn’t become an instant convert but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and a couple of years later I went to a lavish Robert Helpmann produced pantomime at the Coliseum that featured Anne Heaton as the ballerina, the only part of the show I remember. Ballet going proper began when at sixteen I was taken to see the Royal Ballet at Drury Lane in a performance of Sleeping Beauty and to be honest I enjoyed the music as much as the dancing, but from then on I went as often as my salary as an office junior would allow and was lucky enough to see Fonteyn and Nureyev at the height of their fame, usually queuing all night for a standing place. Having a passion for the nuts and bolts of how things work I spent a recovery period after a road accident watching professional classes at the old Dance Centre in Floral Street. After that I was no longer entranced by everything I saw and became a lot more discriminating, but at the same time more appreciative of things done well. I consider myself fortunate to have been around in the old days when top choreographers were all creating major works on a regular basis, there is still much new choreography to admire but less and less in the classical style and I miss that.

I can assure you Glurdijze is very well known to the UK public, had she been dancing I would have bought a ticket. She is not, therefore I won't

I agree entirely but perhaps in this case the director might have sacrificed one of her own performances, after all isn't her job to direct?

But with a dancer of the calibre of Glurdijze, surely favouritism should be outweighed by the exceptional quality of her dancing?

The exclusion of Elena Glurdjidze is beyond comprehension and at this moment I am feeling very angry about it..

Of the countless eastern European companies touring the UK in the past decade only St Petersburg Ballet Theatre were worth shelling out for and they don't tour here any more because the shady spivs that have recently gone into the impresario game are engaged in a race to the bottom on substance & quality, so who exactly these 'good quality companies' are I'd be interested to know. Perhaps Sofia National Ballet will be worth going to see, but on the other hand we may see long since retired, out of condition dancers, dancing in front of sets that are falling apart. I hope that isn't the case but won't be surprised if it is.

This is just to apologize re the post I made about the amount of subsidy to the RB, I realize that a figure I was shown was privileged information and I should not have referred to it. Sorry.

In that case surely it would be more economically viable to ditch the RB - after all they cost the taxpayer a hell of a lot more.

I imagine most ballet-goers (opera-goers, theatre-goers etc) find their favourite art forms a blissful escape from the real world. I work in economics and even have to talk to politicians now and then. I absolutely don't want to talk about 'the changing economic & political climate' when I'm out for the evening and I suspect most others don't either.

Well said Marieve - I agree with every word.

You mean you haven't noticed the superiority of National Theatre productions over the average West End dross?