Alice Shortcake

I couldn't agree more about the Saturday matinee - well worth the trip from York! It didn't occur to me until I was on the way home that the last Coppelia I saw was a 1980s London Festival Ballet production, also at the Hippodrome.

I was going to give this one a miss as I couldn't imagine it working as a ballet, but after reading the comments here I bought a ticket for one of the matinees at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Although I didn't think the set was in the same league as those used in the POB and Mariinsky productions of Jewels, it was servicable enough...with the exception of the curly-wurly alien life form hovering over Emeralds!

Am I alone in thinking that the costumes and wigs for some of the supporting characters in M&A are hilariously awful?

I too hope the show will be filmed, as 1984 was last year.

No DVD? That's disappointing. It seems as if almost every RB cinema broadcast turns up on DVD eventually.

I saw the show at York's Theatre Royal yesterday afternoon - a very well-attended matinee - and thoroughly enjoyed it. The tragic hedgehog incident made me wonder, not for the first time, if dancers have ever been injured by Widow Simone's flying feet in the Fille clog dance! The music seemed to me to be over-amplified, but no-one sitting near me remarked on it so perhaps I'm just overly sensitive to noise.

I can't wait to see the matinee this coming Saturday. Fingers crossed that the performance won't be cancelled due to the danger of the Grand Theatre's roof being blown off by gale-force winds, which is what happened the last time I went to see Northern Ballet!

I'd love to see Ashton's R&J again - I enjoyed it when it was performed by London Festival Ballet many years ago. At about the same time I saw Schaufuss' Nutcracker and was baffled by the storyline, as for some reason there were no programmes available on the night. Am I imagining things or did it involve a Sea of Lemonade?

You're quite right. The person at Australian Ballet who told me that their DVDs are Region 4 was badly misinformed.

Thanks for that, Bluebird. I'll take the plunge and buy them.

How odd. I emailed the Australian Ballet about this and was told that both the new Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are Region 4 only!

I missed the cinema broadcast, but I suspect the reason the DVD isn't on Amazon.uk is that it's only available in a Region 4 version. The same apparently applies to the Australian ballet's version of The Nutcracker, which it shares with BRB.

The Australian Ballet's lavish new 'Sleeping Beauty' has been released on DVD (ABC Classics) but it isn't showing up on Amazon yet.

We've all suffered embarrassing coughing fits whilst at the theatre at once time or another. They're annoying enough for other audience members, but I can sympathise with Jon Vickers' advice to a serial cougher during a performance of Tristan und Isolde:

I came across the following snippet in an issue of The Era, a theatrical newspaper, dated 14th January 1899: "ON Saturday night last in the course of the concluding scene of The Belle of New York at the Cardiff Theatre Royal Mr Lionel E. Lawrence, who was playing Ichabod Bronson, suddenly stopped in the middle of one of his songs and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I refuse to go on with my song, as there is a man right in front of me who has been reading a newspaper all the evening. It is most disgusting, and I must ask you to excuse me from singing any more.” The gentleman continued to peruse his paper, and said he had a perfect right to read a newspaper if he liked, and would not be stopped by anyone. He continued to do so, and the performance went on without any further incident." ​It's a comfort to know that audiences were as badly behaved then as they are now!

According to a member of staff I spoke to outside the theatre, it wasn't until around noon that the decision was made not to go ahead with the matinee. Very frustrating, especially for those of us who travelled long distances, but most ticket-holders would have already left home before the emails were sent out.

Damnation - I arrived in Leeds to discover that the matinee performance had been cancelled due to structural damage caused to the Grand Theatre's roof by recent high winds. The theatre will be closed until 28th December.

I'm looking forward to seeing this next week!

I also prefer to have tickets in my hot sticky hands...mainly because I can't trust my hot sticky brain to remember that I bought them! I've missed several performances because of this.

It's a shame that so little of Erik Bruhn's dancing was recorded on film. The young Erik can also be seen dancing with Zizi Jeanmaire in the film 'Hans Christian Anderson': https://m.youtube.com/?hl=en-GB&gl=GB#/watch?v=Ott1vTjmFFA

I'm looking forward to seeing this next month!

So that's what was happening at the Birmingham Hippodrome! It never occurred to me that they were looking for booze smugglers.

I must confess that I laughed out loud at the sheer speed with which Frankenstein assembled the Creature. Arm/leg attached and heart bunged in the chest cavity in the time it takes to stick on a Band-Aid...

I loved The Snow Queen and saw it twice, once at Sadlers Wells and once at the ROH. It surprises me that Bintley has never revived it.