At the ballet

Why I'm not a dance critic

Photo: Kazuo Ota

I’m still finding my feet two months after joining Substack and finally found the courage to ask the wonderful ex-Musicals writing team to take a look (hello and thank you to everyone who has subscribed). I’d also been deliberating on when would be an opportune time to start asking for review tickets for this Substack and finally bit the bullet. Excitingly, I got affirmatives for Shucked at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre tomorrow and The Frogs at Southwark Playhouse Borough next week. I’m so very grateful. For now, however, just a few random things.

Étoile (and remembering Bunheads)

I haven’t heard all that much fanfare around Étoile, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s (Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) latest venture, set in the world of ballet (irresistible!). Is it good? I’m not sure; it all feels quite… scattered. Since I hated Midge ‘Me Me Me’ Maisel as a character (the show would have been so much better if she’d been a proper antiheroine), I was pleasantly surprised to love prima ballerina Cheyenne Toussaint, who must be an exaggerated version of Sylvie Guillem (‘Mademoiselle Non’), played by the incredibly striking Lou de Laâge. It's also good to see that her professional dance double Constance Devernay-Laurence has been given full credit.

I don’t really understand what they’re trying to do with Simon Callow’s character, an arms dealer who’s also a patron of the arts. Luke Kirby (Mrs Maisel’s Lenny Bruce), playing a New York arts management nepo-baby, is very handsome, as is David Alvarez as Cheyenne’s dance partner. I was somewhat distracted by how Charlotte Gainsbourg is styled to look like Ghislaine Maxwell (apparently Call My Agent’s Camille Cottin was originally going to play her role and I wonder if she and de Laâge were considered too similar) and I don’t like how her character is depicted as being so incompetent. I hope it all gels a bit more effectively in the second series though I’m not too hopeful after the way the last episode ended. But I’ll be back for more Cheyenne.

My favourite Amy Sherman-Palladino show is the lesser-known Bunheads, starring Broadway favourite Sutton Foster as Michelle, a ballet-school dropout turned Las Vegas showgirl who agrees to marry her long-standing stage-door johnny (he dies about five minutes later). It featured a fantastic role for Kelly ‘Emily Gilmore’ Bishop, the original Sheila in A Chorus Line (it kills me that she never played Phyllis in Follies) as Michelle’s mother-in-law and local dance school owner Fanny Flowers (yes, really). The idyllic coastal town where everyone is obsessed with ballet reminded me of the Ballet School series by Emily Costello that I adored in primary school (I’ve never met anyone else who’s read them). Alas, Bunheads was cancelled before its first season even ended but it remains a favourite comfort watch and I recommend seeking it out.

Northern Ballet’s Jane Eyre

In a neat(ish) segue, Charlotte Gainsbourg gave what my best friend Ali considers the finest screen interpretation of Jane Eyre. Ali and I met in the first class of our Victorian Studies MA and I knew we were kindred spirits when she told me about her cats Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester. I learned about Northern Ballet’s adaptation from a poster at my local bus stop and was intrigued and somewhat confused. The guy looked way too young to be Rochester – but, of course, ballet dancers are young. I booked a ticket, wishing that Ali, who now lives in New York, could come with me.

Cathy Marston’s choreography tells the story with spirit and fluency and a lack of fuss design-wise (which can feel a bit sparse at times). Saeka Shirai’s Jane is appropriately strong-willed and otherworldly and Miguel Teixeira is convincing and dashing as a Rochester who’s cut from the same cloth as Eugene Onegin (you can’t expect the ageing roué of the book when he’s played by a dancer). I wasn’t quite convinced by the six ‘D-Men’ who embody Jane’s inner turmoil/the patriarchy (in fact, that might be who/what the man on the poster represents, rather than Rochester). It wouldn’t be easy to convey ‘You’re actually an heiress and, by the way, we are cousins. Shall we get married and go to India to convert the heathens?’ through dance, but the story works fine with St John Rivers making more generalised advances to Jane, who then rebuffs them. I also liked the female pas de deux between Young Jane and Helen Burns and then Jane and the Rivers sisters, and the use of ballet-meets-early-nineteenth-century clothing.

(I wonder what Kenneth MacMillan would have come up with if he’d adapted Jane Eyre. He may well have found the off-page relationship between Rochester and Adele’s mother the most appealing aspect – it’s not unlike the story of Manon, really).

I’m returning to Sadler’s Wells next month to see Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, which is a sort-of mashup of the works of Patrick Hamilton, a brilliant chronicler of the seedier side of London life in the interwar years. I’ve read and loved/been highly disturbed by Hangover Square and The Slaves of Solitude and it’s the perfect nudge to read The Midnight Bell (the first instalment of his Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy). Unlike Jane Eyre, Hamilton’s books aren’t all that widely read, which means that most people will come to Bourne’s interpretation without any preconceptions. I imagine the prestige of Matthew Bourne’s name is enough to encourage many theatregoers to take a chance on unfamiliar subject matter.

Happy birthday to 20 May (‘Eliza Doolittle Day’) babies Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester! Just look at that leg extension.

Talk Musicals to Me podcast

I highly recommend this wonderful podcast hosted by Musical Theatre actress Caroline Sheen, in which a guest is asked ten questions about the musicals that have inspired their life and career. I initially encountered Sheen through The Witches of Eastwick cast recording and I must have first seen her live in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the National Theatre (that would be my answer to her question about the funniest musical I’ve ever experienced). She’s such a good interviewer and it’s the best Musical Theatre content that I’ve encountered since Musicals closed.

Charles Strouse 1928-2005

I was sorry to hear about the death of Charles Strouse at the age of 96, perhaps the last surviving composer from the Broadway’s ‘Golden Age’ – and I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I don’t know his work nearly as well as I should. I’ve never seen Annie on stage, which I would like to put right eventually. A revival of Bye Bye Birdie could be a lot of fun – perhaps at the Menier? I must also listen to Rags and Applause. There’s always so much more to learn.

Also, a big thanks to Exeunt for mentioning me in their roundup of theatre Substacks. I still don’t quite know what I’m doing here but I’ve discovered lots of great reading material and the sense of community seems very promising.