alison

Thank you, stucha - that's very good to hear. Let's hope there are no more obstacles to overcome. Were any other readers there?

No, it's a transformer I have another one (which I desperately hope isn't a hollow pin, because it's already been severely scratched when I inserted it into a socket which was unusually ticket) which is the transformer for one of my laptops, too

Well, owing to the listings publishers having cheated a bit and done a "pre-Christmas and Christmas" double edition of the TV listings instead of the usual Christmas and New Year version, I'm only still halfway through the Radio Times, but here, as far as I can see, is what's on dance-wise on UK TV and radio this Christmas for the week before Christmas. I'll have to add in the rest later. Terrestrial (BBC1, Saturday 17th December, 6.40 pm: Strictly Come Dancing Final) BBC2, Saturday 17th Dec, 11.50pm: Balletboyz The Making of Young Men BBC2, Saturday 17th Dec (technically Sunday), 12.20am: Balletboyz: Young Men. BBC1, Tuesday 20th December, 10.45 pm: Darcey Bussell: Looking for Margot (signed repeat Friday 23rd, 1.30 am on BBC2) BBC4, Friday 23rd December, 8.00 pm: Darcey Bussell: My Life on the BBC (repeated at 1.45 am the next morning) (I thought I'd spotted a rerun of the Balletboyz' Young Men plus a documentary, but can't find that now. Perhaps it's next week) BBC2, Saturday 24th December, 8.10 am: Hans Christian Andersen - apparently features a ballet including Eric Bruhn and Roland Petit! BBC, Christmas Day, 4.00 pm: Dancing the Nutcracker: Inside the Royal Ballet Channel 5, Christmas Day, 9.50 am: On The Town BBC2, Boxing Day, 5.20 pm: West Side Stories: the Making of a Classic - documentary BBC4, Boxing Day (technically December 27th), 1.00 am: Darcey Bussell: My Life on the BBC BBC4, Boxing Day (technically December 27th), 2.00 am: Darcey Bussell's Looking for Audrey Channel 5, Boxing Day, 2.20 pm: West Side Story (and repeated on 29th December at 11.05 am) BBC4, 27th December, 7.00 pm: The Ballet Master: Sir Peter Wright at 90 Sky Arts (Taken from the uninformative Radio Times listings, so details may be vague) Saturday 17th December, 1.30 pm: Swan Lake Sunday 18th December, 1.30 pm: The Nutcracker (probably repeated at 3.40 am the next morning) Monday 19th December, 9 pm: Billy Elliot the Musical Live Wednesday 21st December, 6.30 am: Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake 9.00 am: Bolero Friday 23rd December, 4.10 pm: Peter Wright's The Nutcracker Saturday 24th December, 10.10 am: The Nutcracker Christmas Day (or technically Boxing Day), 2.00 am: The Nutcracker Boxing Day, 9.00 pm: Billy Elliott the Musical Live Boxing Day (technically December 27th), 3.30 am: Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake Radio (BBC Radio 3) Saturday 17th December, 3 pm: Sound of Cinema covers film music inspired by the ballet Sunday 18th December, 12 noon: The RB's Edward Watson is the guest on Private Passions Friday 23rd December, 3.10 pm: a performance of Verdi/Mackerras' The Lady and the Fool

Cheapskate manufacturers of electrical goods who - since we frequently don't actually need one in the UK - not only replace the earth pin with a moulded plastic pin but a *hollow* moulded plastic pin at that, thereby ensuring that the thing ultimately snaps off when you try and pull it out of a tight power socket and gets stuck, rendering the whole appliance unusable

Thanks, capybara. I'm sure Begona's many fans will be sorry not to see her.

As of yesterday, Chiltern Trains are running a service from London Marylebone to Oxford https://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/london-oxford It claims to take you to "the heart" of Oxford, though as I recall the station is quite a way out of the city centre. I'm sure I shall carry on using the Oxford Tube coach service, but I thought I'd mention it in case it's of use to people travelling to performances at the theatre there as an addition to the service from Paddington.

I'm trying to see how that sort of behaviour would have applied to the Bolshoi ... do they have any racially mixed dancers?

I think the cinema screens are all different ratios, that's the problem I know I've seen live relays on extremely wide screens, wide screens and what I'd think of as "normal" cinema screens, so I guess something has to give.

I think everyone's very impressed with Brandon, Dave!

Darn, I completely forgot about it!

Tons and tons, apparently, not to mention all that threading and so forth. I'm afraid I shall just keep to the natural look ...

You tend to need to look for it. I've been to numerous Bourne productions, at numerous theatres, over the decades, and have usually found the board once I've remember that I need to look for it.

Thank you, Ian. Welcome to the forum.

(Having recently done a house-to-house flyer delivery) Letterboxes with particularly fierce draught excluders through which you can't push paper, and in particular the ones which are so fierce that they grab hold of the letterbox flap and flatly refuse to release it! (thereby leaving the letterbox open and *creating* a draught!) I really feel sorry for postmen now.

Fonty, I don't know if there's a Picturehouse anywhere near you, but someone recently referred to them doing weekday daytime repeats of RB broadcasts, if that's any good to you.

Ah, I was hoping that was the reason he was trending on Yahoo! An incredible achievement, even in this day and age.

Sounds as though I didn't miss much by giving the screening a miss - and I'm sure the audience will have appreciated the absence of my coughing. But yes, I agree, if you felt the filming fell below par, do let your feelings be known in the right place - only that way will we get improvement. When you're shelling out £20 for a cinema ticket, you deserve a premium experience.

There was certainly a Mother Ginger section in the Hampson/Scarfe ENB Nutcracker. I've yet to see any production which makes particularly convincing use of the music.

The boxes in the Circle (and downstairs, no doubt) get in the way of being able to appreciate the transformation properly - so to be avoided.

Possibly not. That's a variation on a question I've asked in the past: whether an AD needs to be a former *principal* dancer. I don't think so.

Or in the Circle

Available now: http://www.getintolondontheatre.co.uk/shows/#dance-opera

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/latest-news/article/item382169/matthew-bournes-cinderella-returns-christmas-2017/

They're not on for another couple of weeks, Scheherezade

I must admit that if I were an individual artist I might not necessarily be keen on having my every word recorded for posterity, especially these days, when the slightest word out of place risks causing such havoc. But at least, as capybara says, most of the insights are shown online. You just miss any juicy bits at the end