Ballet show in Bath - 5th June to 7th June

[Geoff]

Maybe people in the area would like to know about this:

 

http://www.missiontheatre.co.uk/whats-on/2023/6/5/bluffing-your-way-in-ballet

 

If you do go and see this, it would be great to see a review posted on here! 

[Sim]

I think that by saying the shows start at 6:30 AM they will put a lot of people off!! 

 

[Geoff]

Yes! The ticket page is slightly clearer but there seem to be two start times for different things, 6.30pm and 8pm:-

 

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5741830

[Nogoat]

As we live only a dozen or so miles from Bath we decided to take a punt on this show along with, as it turned out, a couple of dozen others (mainly women; I counted four men). The theatre is tiny, and the performance took place on the cleared seating area, with the chairs arranged around the edges, looking in. Nice and intimate, then, which definitely suited their engaging, enthusiastic approach. 

 

Of the seven or eight performers (two men and the rest women) only one appeared a bona fide dancer - Alexandra Pickford, ex-professional dancer with a 30-year career spanning the RB and ENB. She might be into her 70s, but she remains a remarkably fit and active dancer. It's fair to say the others (who make up a group called Seizing the Day Company) were more proficient at acting, with most only a decade or two behind her. 

But what they might have lacked in dance technique they more than made up for in heartfelt enthusiasm; and since we didn't go along expecting to see professional-level dancing, we weren't disappointed.

 

The performance was a lighthearted, potted history of ballet - a bluffer's guide to dance - narrated by a larger-than-life fellow with a sonorous, booming voice, and illustrated by episodes from that history (standout skits were a very, very pared down version of The Rite of Spring, and Isadora Duncan telling her story in the form of a poem).

 

They finished with a parody of Strictly Come Dancing, with 'volunteers' from the audience acting as the judges, and the rest of the troupe playing celebrity contestants (eg, the larger-than-life narrator did a nice caricature of Boris Johnson). It was fun, and I can see why they they wanted to finish with a bit of razzmatazz rather than the latest developments in the world of choreography such as, er, some titled or untitled thing by McGregor, but it didn't sit well with the overall ballet theme beyond the obvious Darcey connection.
But that's being a bit over-critical for what was essentially an affectionate, light-hearted and surprisingly enjoyable evening's entertainment.