
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Hobson’s Choice – London
★★★★✰ Big-hearted, whimsical, suffused with equal parts romance and drollness, Hobson’s Choice is a gem of the BRB repertoire – long may it keep being revived.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Fire and Fury: The King Dances, Ignite – London
★★★✰✰ David Bintley, who steps down as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet at the end of the 2018/2019 season, describes the current double bill as ‘two ballets fuelled by power and politics’.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Coppelia and Three Short Story Ballets – Bristol and Birmingham
★★★✰✰ I went to Bristol to catch Coppelia and the specific lead casting of Celine Gittens and Tyrone Singleton – who have now totally transitioned from being rising stars to fully risen Principals.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Wink, The Moor’s Pavane, The Shakespeare Suite – London
★★★★✰ Wink, best seen from above, is a valuable addition to BRB’s repertoire. So is José Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, created in 1949.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – The Tempest – London
★★★✰✰ Bintley has treated Shakespeare’s drama as a masque, full of spectacle, music and dancing, with elusive characters that are more allegorical than realistic. It doesn’t work as a narrative ballet because the sub-plots are too complicated…

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Wink, The Moor’s Pavane, The Shakespeare Suite – Birmingham
★★★✰✰ Jessica Lang’s Wink is an attractive piece, well designed and well made with a clear structure.

Celebrating the Birmingham Royal Ballet / Peter Wright Nutcracker at 25
Birmingham Royal Ballet have been celebrating the Silver Anniversary of Sir Peter Wright’s great Nutcracker production and the company’s move to Birmingham that same year.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Sylvia – Birmingham
David Bintley’s Sylvia is a great piece of classical dance and escapist fun.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Serenade, Carmina burana – London
To celebrate his 20th year as artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, David Bintley has revived the first work he created in the post – Carmina burana…

Birmingham Royal Ballet – La Fin du jour, Miracle in the Gorbals, Flowers of the Forest – London
Gillian Lynne has made Helpmann and Benthall’s wartime collaboration into a gutsy dramatic ballet, probably with more choreography than Helpmann attempted.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – London
…it’s actually a real pleasure to watch a company just working together for the good of the ballet.

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Coppelia and Mid-scale Tour – Birmingham, High Wycombe
Birmingham Royal Ballet are busy at the moment – we catch up with them touring a mixed bill, and at home in Coppelia – happy times…

Birmingham Royal Ballet – Cinderella – Birmingham
As a young partnership Delia Mathews and Tyrone Singleton really are exceptionally good.