alison

I've only booked one performance of this bill so far - and, given the cast changes, may not be booking any more - so would expect to stay until the end, but last time around I found that Aeternum, like Trespass in the Titian programme, was for me a case of the law of diminishing returns, so if I do book more performances it's conceivable that I too might leave early. OTOH, I might change my mind totally and decide that it's a masterpiece. I shall have to wait and see.

I don't think so. I'm not sure he did any Des Grieux once Guillem had left. He was down to dance it with Benjamin in the autumn 2005 revival, IIRC, but then pulled out. Not sure that he was injured, and it was before his motorbike accident, I think.

Well, Khan's performance at the Olympics certainly seemed to have a very positive effect on ticket sales for DESH. I think the question, though, may be how long people will retain that memory for. It could be that two years on quite a few of them have forgotten his name and would have to be reminded about "that bloke who performed at the Olympics".

Strange. Mind you, the casting seems to be something of a mishmash anyway. And when did Arestis replace Yanowsky?

What a shame

Just received this in an email from Dance Books, and thought it might be of interest: "Dance Books is delighted to announce a new edition of Frank W. D. Ries's 'The dance theatre of Jean Cocteau'. First published in 1986 at the then exorbitant price of £60 (today's equivalent of nearly £150) the book's high price put it out of the reach of many potential readers, and we very much hope that our more reasonable priced edition will give this fascinating and very readable book the wider circulation it deserves. In an artistic career spanning five decades, and for which he was best known as poet, artist, dramatist, designer and film-maker, Jean Cocteau was also involved, directly and indirectly, with nearly twenty ballets. While he was not in the strictest sense a choreographer, his influence on such works as Parade, Le Jeune homme et la mort, Orphée, and La Dame à la licorne was all pervasive – from the “poésie” of the dramatic action, to lighting, to costume and set design. His creations, in collaboration with composers and choreographers, were fully integrated theatre pieces. Frank Ries has researched all of Cocteau’s ballets and, using interviews, Cocteau’s own writings, reviews and critiques – some of which have never before been translated – presents this survey and analysis of Cocteau’s involvement in the world of dance. He re-creates, from a new perspective, a portrait of a poet charged by Serge Diaghilev in pre-World War I Paris to “Astonish me!” and who made that command the inspiration of his career in dance. As usual, you'll find full details and ordering facilities of these and other recent titles on our web site: www.dancebooks.co.uk"

The fact that she hates/is scared of rats, I think In that case, just imagine how bad the sea voyage must have been for her. I don't imagine the deportees had the luxury of cabins. And yes, I think there are echoes everywhere once you start looking for them. It certainly was a marvellous performance to finish off the run: I only wish that the antics of certain people in the slips hadn't distracted me from some of the more dramatic parts of it. And sorry that those who had tickets for the Wednesday didn't get a chance to see this partnership. And yes, I'm sure Yanowsky and Bolle have danced together before. Didn't they do Sylvia together? Actually, that may have been him and Bussell. Or both.

12 years old? Didn't I see him in the Evening Standard (I guess - I don't see anyone else's) gossip column as "dating" someone else, or am I getting my Beckham boys confused? Anyway, I thought Burberry was a "grown-up" brand. Why use a 12-year-old?

I had a quick look at this at the weekend while I was up there, and found it rather unclear, and difficult to envisage where everything was (and I'm someone who's not exactly unused to deciphering technical drawings). What *did* strike me quite forcefully was the various references to increased retail and restauration (I think that's the English word?) opportunities, which are clearly quite a major consideration. A few things which remain in my memory: the Linbury to be upgraded (presumably retaining its flexibility, although that isn't made clear, but then the exhibition doesn't really go into detail about much (apart from the get-in and get-out and other arrangements during the building works, which - together with the briefness of the duration of the exhibition - makes me think it's more aimed at local residents who can just pop in and have a look, rather than ROH regulars who might well not be there for the couple of weeks it's on). The Linbury is to have seating installed in the slips, by the looks of things, although there's no indication about what will happen to the standing places. The amphitheatre terrace will be largely blocked off and glazed over, apart from a small section right at the far end, and the restaurant will be extended into it. The mention of lowering the parapets makes it sound as though the glazing must be permanent and non-openable, because otherwise there would surely be a serious safety risk? There will be a new balcony provided at the Bow Street end of the Floral Hall, but I'd guess that would probably only be about as wide as the one at the Festival Hall, and wouldn't be able to take seating. Actually, several of the drawings to me looked more like the lower regions of the Festival Hall than anything else, which was slightly disconcerting. If the plans aren't online anywhere, then I think that's a real shame: after all, many of the ROH's patrons probably take more than a couple of weeks between visits, and I'm sure they would appreciate their chance to have a say, too.

Not necessarily. If it's registered, I believe you should be able to get the card disabled, so that nobody else can get at the money you have on it. (Plus of course you can set up auto-topup, which is incredibly useful).

Looking at the nominees for Best Male Dancer, I get a strange feeling of déjà vu Lovely to see Francesca Hayward already getting nominated up there among some greats. Congratulations to all the nominees: from what I've seen of them, they all seem to have considerable merits.

And not even then, really, although you do get extra benefits from doing so. I have to register mine so I can keep a record of travelling expenses, but it's not obligatory.

Are you getting the No. 11 from Victoria or Liverpool Street? I imagine you'd have problems, because a lot of the route is directly along the Lord Mayor's Show route, so it might be cheaper to use the Tube - provided it's working. Oyster cards now "cost" £5, I think. It's a refundable deposit, but it's still an upfront expense, and then you have to add money to it on top of that, I think. If you have a "Contactless" payment card, you can just touch that on the Oyster reader and pay that way, which would be cheaper for just 2 bus trips of £1.45 each. I believe it should now cap at £4.40 per day just as an Oystercard does, but I haven't yet needed to try this. Assuming you're coming from outside the Oyster area, you *can* get a one-day Travelcard added to your rail ticket, although I'm not sure this would prove cost-effective for two bus journeys. If you're within the Oyster area (I suspect you aren't), on the other hand, I should point out that - double-check this with TfL's Fare Finder, although I think it works - a combined rail-and-tube journey should only cost you about £1.50 more than the single rail fare on Oyster. From the point of view of practicalities, bus and tram journeys are a fixed price, so you just "touch in" when you get on. Trains, tubes and DLR aren't, so you have to touch in at your departure station and touch out again at your arrival station so the card "knows" how much to charge you. If you forget to touch out, you automatically get charged the maximum fare! If there's anything else you need to know, just ask. We're probably a lot more helpful than TfL's website, which is even more garbage than it used to be since they relaunched it

In which case, she could just link to the ABT dictionary, presumably?

It's an attractive-looking book, certainly: rather a shame that it's aimed at children, though I had a quick flip through in the ROH Shop yesterday: did I really see that there was a "becoming a ballerina" section but not an equivalent one for boys? If so, that's very disappointing in this day and age.

Thanks, Katherine.

While perusing the dance magazines in the ROH Shop today, I noticed that there's actually a book out (or due to be out shortly) about Xander. Does anyone have any more details?

Southern are currently showing engineering works up to the end of January here: http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/plan-your-journey/improvement-works/ Obviously that's no guarantee that something more urgent won't crop up in the meantime, but it's probably a useful basis.

Quite. Nobody's going to expect a carbon copy of 50 years ago, but at the same time the style of a piece needs to be respected. For me, that would include extensions at closer to 90 than 180 degrees in Sleeping Beauty I agree with Floss: the first time I saw the Royal do Sleeping Beauty was in the 1989 run, and I'm pretty certain we had at least two of the Fairies danced by principals (Viviana Durante and Karen Paisey would be my guess). Admittedly, that was in the days when the RB had a much greater abundance of principals than they do now, but even so they have quite a few under-used principals now. Nowadays, those roles often seem to go to aspiring junior dancers. I see the point, in that they're short solos, but as discussed above they are not infrequently under-cast.

Wimbledon New Theatre: Exclusive £20* band A & B tickets. Quote 'RUSSIA' (Thu & Fri only) 13th-14th November

Ooh, lovely. Wish they showed some of this on free-to-air TV.

There are various versions around: I saw one probably in a gala recently, and then there's the one Calvin Richardson created recently, which the RB seems to have been plugging like mad. BTW, impressive to see that mid-morning on a Friday you'd already clocked up 5 views within 5 minutes!

Good to hear such positive reports. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to see her in the role since ... I think it may have been when Rojo was first in the company? ... but it's good to know she's still as good as ever.

Thanks. Loads of time to kill tomorrow, then.

If they had been filming, I'm pretty certain it would have been stated in the booking brochure "Scenes" and "Brahms Waltzes", at least, are already available on DVD.