alison

Are we back to one of the upper echelons of Friends' booking today, or something? A waiting-room of over 1300 has just greeted me.

That's good to know. Thank you all for the hard work you've been doing behind the scenes.

I find they take about 5 minutes to kick in as a rule, which isn't always quick enough when you realise that something has just arrived on that sensitive spot at the back of your throat. This is, of course, a Links thread: perhaps we should start an audience behaviour thread of some description? (What's On Stage has one that, at last count, went on for 17 pages. I don't think we can manage that, but it is clearly a problem).

I think it was briefly touched on in another post some time ago, but just to confirm that the meeting on 29th February has been cancelled and Claire Calvert will now be appearing on March 9th. Further details at http://www.balletassociation.co.uk/Newsletters/news_12Feb.html, together with some other interesting bits of information

I'd gathered

Personally, I wouldn't want to see anyone locked out of the site (I remember a forum I would probably happily have signed up to some years ago, but the owners in their wisdom put the entire thing behind a password-protected area - you couldn't even get a sample of what was on offer - so I rejected it). Another site I'm registered with has extra benefits for subscribers - plus you get a nice big "SUBSCRIBER" under your avatar so that you can "stand up and be counted" - and I was going to suggest that might be a possibility, although I'm currently not sure about the "extra benefits".

Actually, I think most, if not all, of "his team" actually predate him, don't they? I must admit, this has come as a bit of a surprise - I had thought things had settled down at ENB. Edited to get my grammar right.

In the Daily Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen's salute to Anna Pavlova: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/9093012/The-Swan-who-danced-herself-to-death.html

Late last year, back on the old forum, I expressed my appreciation of the Royal Ballet - and particularly their corps - having completed an insane number of performances in November due to having to fill in for a missing opera production as well as their originally scheduled performances, and reckoned they deserved a very large cyber-bouquet. Reading today's links, I remembered that I'd been intending to do the same for English National Ballet: 35 performances of The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum, I think it was, followed by a goodly number (19?) of Strictly Gershwin. I think their Bristol performances were the last of the Gershwin programme: over the last 6 months I'd have thought they've done enough performances of it to put most people off Gershwin for life, so I think they're deserving of a giant cyber-bouquet too. I hope their schedule over the next few months will be thoroughly refreshing for all of them.

Thanks, Janet. I have to say, the one triple bill doesn't sound as though it's going to entice me to Birmingham, especially compared with the programming BRB have done in their mixed bills in recent years. Assuming that BRB are going to carry on with their London Coliseum season in the spring as they have in recent years, does that mean we shall get the Aladdin? Interesting. Giselle sounded good, until I read cabriole's post and remembered that it wasn't the Wright production.

(Answering in reverse order here: Quite - as opposed to having to hunt for it all over the net: companies' (and dancers'/creatives') Facebook pages, own websites, Twitter feeds, blogs and so on. And yes, I totally agree. It's noticeable that, Janet's sterling efforts and a few others apart, coverage of those companies has very much dropped on this site in the last couple of years. I think the fact that certain companies had their own forums did encourage people to post there - but on the other hand, to have an individual forum you do need to have plenty of traffic going there, otherwise it just looks sad and lonely. It's also noticeable that coverage of the "Russian" companies has dropped since this forum started. And have we even *had* an ENB thread yet? Not a performance-related one that I can remember.

Ah, right. And I think I saw a notice saying that day tickets on Monday (Le Nozze di Figaro) won't go on sale until noon, in case anyone's interested.

30 minutes, last time I looked.

Glad to see MoveTube back - I was wondering what had happened to it. There's another one, of Josephine Baker, which we may have missed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/feb/01/josephine-baker-still-scintillating-sepia

It's worth pointing out, for those of you who've said they don't usually sign in, that one simple operation will leave you signed in permanently whenever you view the site. That way, you'll get any PMs headed your way, too

Lifted straight off the website: "Booking unavailable due to essential maintenance 16 Feb - Customers cannot book tickets online, in person or over the phone from 7pm Sat 18 until the afternoon of Mon 20 Feb. Calendar and production pages also unavailable." Suspect this means they're rolling out the new website?

Online at last: the Daily Telegraph's 5-star review of Adam Cooper et al in Singin' in the Rain in the West End: http://www.telegraph...tre-review.html Oh, and now at the Indie (4 stars) too: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/singin-in-the-rain-palace-theatre-london-6979608.html?origin=internalSearch

Definitely looking forward to seeing this one in London!

Ah, so you mean that those of us who open Ballet.co up in the morning and keep it open all day aren't necessarily doing the site much of a favour? Edit: and I've just realised I've had two Ballet.co windows open all day - wonder whether that means I've been counted twice?

Well, I'm happy to help with modding or whatever I can. Will send more details by email later, but thought I should stand up and be counted, so to speak

Interesting that you should mention that, Buddy. I was thinking about it only the other day: I watched it immediately after a run of Royal Ballet performances (I think 2 runs back), and decided that the RB won about 2-1 (that's not a reflection on individual dancers, more how much of the performance I spent thinking "that bit's better than RB" and "I prefer the RB in this bit"). On this showing, I think it would have been more like a 1-1 draw . I agree that Cornejo was stunning (is he still injured? I've lost track). I'm not sure I'd appreciate either Oberon or Titania being "charming" in this ballet, though ... That reminds me: I was still disappointed - although rather less surprised by now - not to see Song of the Earth being filmed. I would have thought this year was an ideal opportunity to film all three of the MacMillan "choral/vocal" ballets for DVD, yet it hasn't happened. Of course, there is already a recording of SotE with Bussell et al, yet it's never been released commercially.

Just discovered there's a play "Ondine" by Jean Giraudoux - I knew I never did enough French Lit. - and it's on in a fringe theatre in Kennington at the end of the month: http://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/productions (scroll down a bit). No idea what it's like, but it does sound as though it's at least linked to the source of the ballet: wasn't Hans (as opposed to Palemon) the name of the knight in the text of the source printed in recent Royal Ballet Ondine programmes?

You mean the first part of the previous post was actually the T&Cs for the old Ballet.co site? I don't remember ever seeing them, but then, perhaps I signed up before they were in place. When you say "allowing blogs", do you mean allowing people to host blogs on the site, or linking to them from elsewhere? I see the site does appear to have blog facilities - as it does gallery facilities: how much space might this take up? (I'm thinking of cost). Critics, I think, should be welcome - after all, reviews are still necessary. As for companies, I don't particularly see why not, if they wanted to - certainly, I think major press releases should be encouraged; ditto with reasonable self-promotion (didn't Ballet Black do that when they first started out?). I don't think I'd mind someone popping in to say "we're going to be performing XYZ on such-and-such a date" and then bumping it close to the time. I do think it's important we stick with the principle that you not hide behind an alias if you're going to be highly critical. Looking at the numbered points above, I think (remembering certain past threads) that possibly "dancers" could be added to the list of groups in the second part of 3! On part 5, if someone has a serious piece of research to do, e.g. for a dissertation, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong in posting a link to their poll or whatever it is. There's perhaps a difference between what this site should *host* and what it should provide links to. Another thought: what about the policy with regard to e.g. YouTube?

Sounds good to me either way, Janet - thanks!

Okay, this isn't casting, but it is Period 2 (sorry, Winter booking period). I was just looking at the March Saturday schedule for the Romeo & Juliets: 3rd: 12.30 matinee, followed by 7.30 opera (over 3 hours!). 10th: 1.30 matinee, 7.00 evening 24th: Alice 12.30 matinee, Romeo 7.30 31st: Alice 12.30 matinee, Romeo 7.30 That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Whatever happened to the "early evening start" Saturdays? Admittedly, the two performances on the 10th won't require a vast amount of scenery changes, but with Romeo running just under 3 hours and Alice allegedly 2 3/4 (and presumably switching between two productions will take more time, even with all the hi-tech scene-changing equipment they now have), that gives a clear 4-hour gap between performances. Not enough time to rehearse an opera, I suspect, and surely the dancers can't be expected to do 2 performances and a stage rehearsal. Or can they?!