Scheherezade

To the never knowingly misunderstood Donkey Shot.

Spaniards will indeed say Kheehoteh, the French opt for Keyshott but many Brits - possibly sloppily or perhaps to sidestep the stigma of looking like a show off by trying to sound authentic - will still say Keyohtee.

I sincerely hope that it isn’t the future of British dance, Bruce, but it had energy and honesty, it’s always uplifting to see the barriers between different art forms kicked aside and as a vehicle for breaking down the overwhelming prejudice against traditional art forms that exists in this country, I sincerely wish it ongoing and repeated success.

First off, I was very glad to have been at Sadler’s Wells on Wednesday night. There was a real buzz about the whole evening and up at the top of the house, at the very back, the ripple of excitement when Tony Iommi came on at the end - a potent mix of anticipation and appreciation- was one of those moments that make you glad to be alive. The music worked too. There was no sense of watering down in the orchestration and when Marc Hayward ran on with his guitar - Gibson SG anyone? - there was a palpable sense of energy that met and matched the skill and enthusiasm of the dancers in a way that made it all feel so real. I wasn’t quite so sure about the lighting. There was an awful lot of black on black, and a fair bit of it shrouded in a shadowy mist almost as dark as the transient demons that looked to have gone awol from the vision segments of the Don Q run at the ROH. I get that it all went towards creating a mood but possibly a little more light to pinpoint the dancers, whose artistry and manifest sense of enjoyment really deserved to be highlighted. Which leads on to the choreography and here again I was in two minds. I did find some parts dull but there were also standout - and stand-alone - parts, one of those being the extended “kiss” sequence which I really liked. Something similar may well have been done before but it was new to me, it fitted the music perfectly and I found it original and rather exquisite. I also loved the exhilarating, seemingly-improvised-but-obviously-not pieces where individual dancers got the chance, Playlist-style, to indulge in a bit of flash and show off their skills. These pieces were sparky, thrilling, but way too brief for my liking. More of these, please, and if BRB, or any other company, for that matter, is looking to broadcast the appeal of ballet to a non-dance aware audience, I’d suggest this kind of dynamism every time in place of the plodding, repetitive, drone-like offerings that characterise much of what passes for dance these days. Yes, there may be nothing new about ballets set to rock or pop scores, but the background to this one is unique and the surrounding publicity far more widespread and more likely to appeal to a wider audience than pretty much everything that has gone before so plaudits to Carlos Acosta, to the BRB dancers, creatives and marketers and to everyone else involved in this impressive collaboration. The Madonna Celebration Tour? Forget it! Hackney Diamonds? Why tune in to a bunch of grizzled old rockers who haven’t seen Hackney in the last 60 years when you can see a real grizzled old rocker, a legend - minus the tips of his fingers no less! - up close and personal on a series of stages throughout the UK right here and now. Rock on Tony Iommi and raise a glass to Black Sabbath - The Ballet!

Yes, and isn’t this the most annoying aspect of the current need to stand. I could barely see anything during the Naghdi/Ball curtain calls although, admittedly, from a SCS position, virtually anyone standing is going to totally obliterate my view.

That’s a lovely story, Bruce.

It is indeed!

I think that the musical pace has a lot to do with it. And are the costumes a bit brighter than in the original run? The production certainly seems less all-round beige than it did at first. It just moves seamlessly from one piece of action to another, without fillers, without tamping down the dance quotient, and the minor parts are fantastic: fully fleshed-out characters that add to the overall feel good vibe that spreads out across this production like melted butter on a freshly toasted piece of bread. The street urchins - and I agree with whoever said that they are not minor characters and should be fully credited - bring so much relatable characterisation to the street scenes. They keep up the camaraderie throughout and colour the whole with recognisable touches like the hammer of a fist on the floor at the failure to grab one of Gamache's coins or something as simple as another wiping his nose across the back of his arm. It is a terrific ensemble piece and I defy anyone not to go home on a pulsating high.

Let's hope Nureyev doesn't want it back! 😇

Taking the Basilios you have mentioned, and adding Matthew Ball to the mix since I was there yesterday evening, I would describe Bracewell’s style as poetic, Sambe as cheeky, Corrales as barnstorming and Ball as elegant with a twist. There has to be room for every type of Basilio and it will be a matter of personal preference which each of us prefer. I am, though, sorry that we won’t get the chance to see Corrales this run as I think that he could have delivered something very exciting.

Tonight was joyous indeed. It had precision, exuberance and buckets of charm. Yasmine’s Kitri was irresistible and Matthew was charisma itself. Wonderful!

Thank you Ian and, yes, it works perfectly now.

Yes, I remember him from the BRB performances in the Linbury, and very good he was too.

All very media-savvy and all very welcome. I have read the Tatler piece on Magri and Ball and thought that the ‘share’ would open the Times article on Bracewell but that was sadly not the case.

I repeatedly checked out the website for yesterday’s performance from early yesterday (although not as early as 9.00 am as I didn’t think that anything would be shown until after 10.00 at the earliest) and it didn’t occur to me to check stalls seats on the basis that I wouldn’t have been able to afford them even with a 50% reduction. Wouldn’t it have helped to send out a generic email to all Friends, subscribers and anyone else who had already booked in advance of this virtual giveaway? And well done, Fairy; could we have a sprinkling of your fairy dust on the forum as a whole?

Great cast! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it remains intact for the November performance.

I cannot, of course, say to whom these tickets were offered, and it may be that they were very deserving recipients, but my initial reaction is what a kick in the teeth for long-standing patrons who can no longer afford the grossly inflated amphitheatre prices, let alone the rest of the house.

This is just shocking news. Utterly devastating.

i think many of us would second that.

But surely not diminished to such a noticeable extent over the duration of lockdown for this reason alone.

The earlier discussion about classical Greek took me back many moons to when my children and their friends sneaked off to hail a passing taxi for a ride to Ancient Greece. This has, of course, since become embedded in local legend but must have provided a real laugh at the time for the taxi driver and the local shopkeeper who rushed out to haul them back.

Any SCS tickets for either of the above two performances would be greatly appreciated and would go some way to relieving my withdrawal symptoms from now until November.

You are exceptionally lucky, Bruce.

Ditto. They do ENB but I’ve never seen anything from the ROH either.

I’d say a combination of ticket prices and the rep, but ticket prices primarily because punters who will not - or, frequently, can not - pay the massively inflated prices currently demanded for productions that they are lukewarm about at best, might well go along anyway if prices were less prohibitive. By way of comparison, look at the swathes of £20 seats with excellent sight lines at the National Theatre, where the very best seats in the house cost less than virtually every one of the cheapest restricted view seats in the amphitheatre at the ROH.