A frog

This is such a stupid thing to say. Ticket touts are not entrepreneurs. This is racketeering pure and simple, they are re-selling people something that should have been theirs in the first place, they don't identify a demand, they artificially create one so they can charge extortionate prices.

A couple of on topic words before going back to the important stuff. I find the disregard in which most politicians seem to treat all matters cultural in this country generally appalling, we wouldn't need to have endless ridiculous discussions about perceived elitism if everyone could just be a grown-up and accept there is nothing wrong with liking things others don't. And I don't think there is anything to expect from cabinet members when the most important qualification seems to be their willingness to slash the budget over improving services. At least that one apparently (used to?) call for the suppression of the DCMS, so at least we know not to expect anything. Nyetimber is quite nice too indeed, but I've liked the ones I've tried a little less. And Japanese whisky can be delicious, the Suntory distillery has been active for close to 100 years now. There flagship brand, Yamazaki is well worth a try, it's very similar to Speyside, the 12 years-old is the easiest to find, the rest of their range is also delicious but can easily get a bit expensive; especially since they recently had a 50% increase in price on some of their range. I also really like the Yoichi 12 years-old which is a very nice all-rounder, sherried and smoky. Hibiki (blended whisky) 12 and 17 were nice enough, but I didn't really find them anything special. Hakushu is the other famous single malt, I've only tried the Heavily Peated expression (which wasn't that heavily peated) and loved it, but they've also had a 50% increase in price since the last release. Thank you Terpsichore for the info, the only research I had done after I had tried it was: "where can I find a bottle?", it was unsuccessful . It explains what I had seen as incongruities, the label called the product scotch, and it seemed to think blend described the colour. I can confirm it comes from French Jura (it's where the bottle was bought, and vin jaune is typical of the region). I know wonder for how long it is aged in total, the bottle seemed to say three years total (which I was very surprised by as it was extremely smooth), but it looks like it might be longer. It was also very sweet, but that would be the vin jaune casks. I also know of a whisky called Armorik made in Brittany, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet, I think there is also a Corsican one.

I beg to differ, one of the best whiskies I've had recently was actually French (called Jurassic). So there. It may have been accidental on the maker's part though, had I read the label first I probaly wouldn't have tried it, it made me wonder if they knew the meaning of the words they were using. I haven't tried an English wine that didn't taste like feet, though I am regularly told there are good ones, I'll try those you mention if I get a chance. I was however very pleasantly surprised by English bubbly, in a blind taste at work a few years ago, Ridgeview won universal praise against Pol Roger.

And if I'm not mistaken, the dinner/dress code only concerns the people who attend (orchestra stalls and grand tier, possibly not all of each either), it's a performance like any other for the rest of the house.

I'm relatively new to ballet so don't really know what happened before her partnership with McRae, but to me she's always been making their performances just as enjoyable as he has, I'll add her Odette/Odile and Manon to the list of roles I have found her great in (although I must say I've only seen her as Juliet in the past run and didn't like her that much then). It does seem that McRae is being put forward for a bigger profile within the company, and as he keeps increasing the theatrics, they may no longer always be ideally suited to dancing together, but I don't think it means anything about her, they are just developing as artists in occasionally different directions (I for instance fully support not having them together in Don Q). ETA: and I just see that a book of pictures of McRae is about to be published.

I don't think anyone's commented on one of the Roberta Marquez performances yet. If yesterday was anything to go by, if she is being sidelined (and I still don't think she is), it would be an amazingly stupid decision from the management. She was absolute classical perfection, amazing musicality. More than any other dancer in this run, you could actually see her dancing to the music. The only thing that could be construed as an exception were her balances during the Rose Adagio, by far the most confident and graceful I have seen this run, she was never in a rush to be supported by the next prince, holding the balances probably longer than she should have (the music got noticeably slower as it went along and Bennet Gartside decided to skip the last promenade as there was no time for it), but as it was the case for all of them (rather than just the last one as Akane Takada did) the overriding impression was grace and confidence instead of simply showing off (which it undoubtedly still was). Ryoichi Hirano was a perfectly suited prince for her, and the pairing made for the first time act 2 managed to keep me fully drawn in from beginning to end. I know some people on these boards sometimes lament how prevalent hyper-extensions are, well she didn't do any when they were uncalled for which overall kept the choreography and performance of one piece. Rapid mentions of James Hay as Florestan and Hikaru Kobayashi as Florine should be added to single them out for praise. The prologue was a bit too shabby for it to be my favourite performance this run (still Takada/Muntagirov), but it definitely ends the series on a high for me.

I was quite happy I had earplugs with me, it was a lucky coincidence.

I'm starting to hope they get Iana Salenko to dance Kitri with McRae again.

Yuhui Choe is now replacing Natalia Osipova on the 5 April as well.

That's not really fair, Ulysses is as linear as it gets, every chapter is set over an hour. I understand people being a bit wary, but given that The Waves is listed among the works inspiring it, it's not really shocking it would go for non-linear.

The last run of Manon was actually far from sold out, I remember buying decent enough amphi seats for the Cuthberson/Polunin debuts barely a few weeks before the performance, and there were still plenty of empty seats on the night. Although it was then barely six month after the previous run, and I don't remember how well that one sold.

Wasn't Month in the Country three years ago already? And they do Swan Lake every other year anyway. The programme looks amazing, and I'm sure I'll end up seeing most of it. But I can't help be a little disappointed that, even though I've only been attending Royal Ballet performances for only a few years, there are only four of the short ballets I haven't seen previously (not including the premieres). Surely they have more than that in their repertoire.

I also remember all accounts of that evening being very laudatory towards her. Maybe the person (people?) who booed genuinely tried to enjoy the performance with an open mind, it's also possible they had decided that as a replacement, she wasn't worth their time as a matter of principle (just like those who heckled the announcement that Yuhui Choe would be repacing Natalia Osipova). Had she been booed in one her normally scheduled performance, or even had I seen any other actual criticism of her performance that evening, it would be another matter. Anyway, it's not like there is a dancer in the company that is universally lauded in everything they dance, if she had a genuinely bad performance, it's unfortunate, but it happens. I still don't see any sign of her being marginalised, or deserving to be.

Roberta Marquez is still scheduled to dance Aurora on the 8th (and she'll still be here to dance The Dream on the 5 June) so I assume she could be in the running to replace Osipova if necessary. I don't understand why some think she's being marginalised (she is dancing with McRae in The Dream btw), she's always cast in the classical roles, and there are overall not that many programmes she isn't featured in. And while I haven't loved her in everything I've seen her dance (just like anyone else in the company), I've never thought she wasn't deserving of being a principal. If we're mentioning her Nikiya in particular, her portrayal was probably my favourite last season. I wasn't there for the performance that was initially scheduled with Cojocaru, but I don't remember people expressing disappointment in her performance as opposed to in having missed Cojocaru.

And it's just been announced that Natalia Osipova will be replaced by Yuhui Choe this evening due to injury. http://www.roh.org.uk/news/cast-change-yuhui-choe-to-dance-in-the-sleeping-beauty-on-27-march-2014

Yes, those are only the ballets that will be shown in the cinema.

Cinema screenings have somehow already been announced. For ballet, as has already been announced, it includes Alice in December, Swan Lake will be in March. I'm quite happy to also see a return of Manon and La Fille Mal Gardee, in October and May respectively.

Marriott is not part of the artistic triumvirate, but I'd still count him as part of the Royal Ballet team, has he choreographed for other companies? Rushes - Fragments of a Love Story had one revival if I remember correctly, and it might be still too early to consider it abandoned. How few choreographers are comissioned was illustrated by the Metamorphosis bill, they were the seven who created new work during Monica Mason's tenure.

I overall liked Tetractys a lot more last night than I did in the previous performances. I'll mostly put it down to where I was sitting, McGregor always struck me as a choreographer whose work was more enjoyable from the stalls, ideally from as close as possible, and this was the case again. I thought Olivia Cowley was very good, no-one should feel cheated out of having missed Osipova. There was however one moment (that I spotted) where you had the feeling she was an understudy rather than second cast (I do not mean that pejoratively against her, I am assuming that she therefore wouldn't have had as much rehearsal time as someone who was always supposed to be on stage), at the very beginning, when Edward Watson is carrying her/Osipova, McGregor had pointed during the insight evening that she should position herself as a completely straight line, and this wasn't quite the case. It still raises a few questions as to how prepared the company was to the possibilty of an injury. The performance of Rhapsody was probably my favourite of the three casts, Yuhui Choe is always radiant in Ashton, Valentino Zucchetti brought just enough bravura without going over the top.

I wonder Dawid Trzensimiech's departure is linked to that, it is after all one less spot open for internal promotion at the RB.

But sometimes, as in http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/feb/05/men-motion-sergei-polunin-review (it's an old link, but it had struck me then as particularly bad journalism) it does feel like the journalist wants to point out that he belongs to a club where the reader is not admitted, these comments don't help anyone, and if anything are only fuelling speculation that information is being hidden.

The whole of it is yes, with Myrtha the head of the hospital. It was performed in Paris over Christmas; I was quite far from the stage but from where I was between the lighting and the way the piece was choreographed, we actually saw very little (for those who don't know what Alison was alluding to, Albrecht ends up naked). As much as I liked it, I doubt the RB would be able to sell it out, it also involves too few dancers for a full evening length work.

It seems to be better now, and I was even able to get SCS tickets, I'm still not taking any chances and am processing with checking directly after I have put each ticket in my basket.

55 reduced to 30.50 (rear Dress Circle), 40 reduced to 23 (Upper Circle), their website allows to check in advance what is available.

There were tickets available through the TKTS booth today, it is however selling very well, so not sure if it will be repeated (they currently have Friday as tbc but nothing for tomorrow).