Alice Shortcake

I'm baffled by Amazon's claim that the recently released 'Onegin' is Region 1 and therefore unsuitable for most DVD players in the UK, yet according to C Major's website the DVD is Region O. Has anyone here bought a copy from Amazon UK?

I've brought Cheryl's misleading comments to the attention of the Royal Ballet. More info if and when I get a response.

Does anyone remember a 1980s BBC show, the title of which I've forgotten, that was presented as the dance equivalent of the Cardiff Singer of the World competition? I vaguely remember that the programme featured young people performing ballet and contemporary dance, but I can't remember if it was a series or a one-off. As for Cheryl Cole, it's worth bearing in mind that anyone can edit a Wikipedia article...

I can't remember a thing about the Schaufuss Nutcracker other than that it involved a Sea of Lemonade and nutcracker dolls of various sizes. On the night I saw it at the Royal Festival Hall there were no programnes, and I had absolutely no idea what was happening on stage!

Yes, it will be on iPlayer.

Also forthcoming from C Major, Christian Spuck's reworking of 'The Nutcracker' for Zurich Ballet: https://www.cmajor-entertainment.com/movie/the-nutcracker-9533/

More info here: https://www.cmajor-entertainment.com/movie/john-crankos-onegin-a05050527/

Oh God, those parrots!

Probably the greatest-ever response to a noisy audience member: Jon Vickers, as Tristan, is as mad as hell and he isn't going to take the coughing any more!

My viewing of "Swan Lake" at the local Picturehouse was somewhat marred by the smelly feet of a woman sitting near me, who kept taking her shoes off every few minutes.

I saw the production at York Picturehouse and also thought that the lighting was inadequate. And it's very annoying that after thirty years of complaints about Siegfried's dark tights making him blend into the background the new production makes exactly the same mistake! Otherwise I enjoyed the production tremendously, with a few reservations: 1) Too much Benno, not enough Siegfried. I found myself wondering if the prominence of the prince's personable young friend at court was the real reason why the queen was so anxious to marry her son off to the first available princess. 2) Glitter. Did we really need quite so much? Surely the queen has enough on her mind without risking a Glitter Gap between her own country and the adjoining fairytale nations. 3) Rothbart's costume. Tatty wings, mangled head, exposed ribs...this is what happens when a large bird smashes into a speeding car (or would be if birds had ribs instead of wishbones). The word "roadkill" crossed my mind every time Rothbart appeared in his part-time sorceror outfit. I've never understood why, if Odette can appear in swan form without the aid of wings and a prosthetic beak, Rothbart has to be lumbered with avian - usually owl-like - characteristics. The result is invariably ludicrous, and a bit pointless if Rothbart already looks like Vladimir Putin's even more evil twin. On the whole, though, I thought the production was a vast improvement on the previous one. It's a relief to know that Siegfried's old tutor is now serving a lengthy prison sentence, or at least enrolled with Alcoholics Anonymous, and that Uncle Fester's pink opera cape is unlikely to be seen outside the walls of the Addams family mansion.

Slightly OTT, but am I right in thinking that there were two versions of the pre-Dowell Swan Lake? The choreography may have been identical but, according to a notebook in which I recorded my visits to the theatre in the early 80s, there were two sets of designs by Leslie Hurry, one of them darker and and more medieval than the other. All this talk of princesses in tutus reminds me of a fairly recent German Swan Lake set in the late 19th century, in which Rothbart was the Prime Minister with marital designs on the widowed Queen and the princesses wore tutus with their family coats of arms embroidered on the skirt.

Another cause for celebration: at last we have a Von Rothbart who doesn't look like a walking compost heap!

I think the couple you mention had probably been conditioned by years of attending Wagner performances on stage to bring large amounts of food to a cinema relay. Perhaps they assumed that if patrons eat during an ordinary film they could do the same during a live opera relay. Years ago, just before seeing ON's semi-staged "Tristan" at Leeds Town Hall, I called at the bus station shop. "It's Wagner, isn't it?" said the assistant. "I can always tell because it's the only time I see well-dressed people with picnic baskets and backpacks."

Let's hope that a DVD of "Casanova" is also on the cards...and I would LOVE a DVD of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"!

Whoa, I didn't know that!

I'm dying to see the show again on digitaltheatre.com, but I'll be very surprised if a DVD is made available.

Nutcracker and Mata Hari are now sold.

I have the following DVDs for sale: The Nutcracker, Australian Ballet (the Peter Wright production also used by BRB) - £9 Mata Hari, Dutch National Ballet - £12 Giselle, the Fracci/Bruhn film - £8 La Bayadere, Royal Ballet (Rojo/Acosta) £13 All DVDs are as new and the prices include postage and packing. I can accept payment by cheque or Paypal.

Silliest overheard remark of the year so far, from the man sitting next to me at Jane Eyre - "Was Rochester smoking in bed?"

I don't know enough about ballet to comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the reconstructed choreography, but I have to question the wisdom of spending a fortune on recreating the original costumes. Most of them, to my eyes at least, are hideous. And there really should be a law against men with muscly thighs wearing striped tights!

I absolutely loathe the whooping that passes for applause at theatres nowadays. Twenty years ago or so we associated behaviour like this with the audiences of down-market American TV shows - now it's everywhere, like the meaningless use of the word "like" three times in every sentence.

I'm looking forward to seeing this in Leeds later this month. Having being underwhelmed by Sally Beamish's score for BRB's disappointing "Tempest" last year I'm relieved to see so much praise for her music for "The Little Mermaid".

I couldn't agree more! Watching a performance on DVD and seeing the same production live are two completely different experiences. The argument that making recordings available will have an adverse effect on ticket sales seems absurd to me, yet it's still trotted out by the National Theatre despite the fact that the RSC and the Globe have been selling DVDs for years.

Well, I saw last Thursday's matinee and I'm sorry to say that the work left me cold - I left at the interval, the first time I've ever done so at a ballet performance. NB artists can be relied upon to never give less than their best, but in my opinion they were defeated by the undistinguished choreography, the awful score, and - above all - a story so ludicrous it didn't move me at all. I realise that the novel doesn't claim to be based on real events (I read it after seeing the ballet and found it so absurd and manipulative I had to restrain myself from throwing it across the room), but surely even the teenagers at whom it is aimed should know that a nine-year-old boy wouldn't have survived more than a few days in Auschwitz, let alone have had an opportunity to form a friendship with anyone on the other side of the wire fence. Why don't the inmates take advantage of the convenient gap under the fence (which in reality was ELECTRIFIED with guard towers at intervals). Why on earth would the German-speaking Bruno misunderstand Auschwitz as "out-with", or Fuhrer - which means "guide" - as "fury"? I'm sure NB did the best they could with this lazily-written tosh, but I thought it was a complete misfire. And as for that Berlin street scene...I can't believe I was the only person in the audience inwardly humming "Springtime For Hitler".