Dance: Tempting and triumphant

London City Ballet
Resurgence
choreography Ashley Page, Kenneth MacMillan, Arielle Smith, Christopher Marney
dancers Alina Cojocaru, Cira Robinson, Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla, Arthur Wille, Alejandro Virelles, Joseph Taylor, Isadora Bless, Nicholas Vavrečka, Miranda Silveira, Bárbara Verdasco, Jimin Kim, Nicholas Mihlar, Ayça Anil, Ellie Young
music Jennie Muskett, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, John Adams, Gabriel Fauré
lighting Andrew Murrell • projection Duncan McLean
costumes Emily Noble, Stevie Stewart
Sadler's Wells, London • 11-14.Sep.24 ★★★★

Almost 30 years since it was disbanded in 1996, London City Ballet returns to the stage at Sadler's Wells with an eclectic array of dance. And the programme also includes short documentary films that, like the dance pieces, explore the company's history and look forward to the future. In some ways, this feels like a graduation performance, with students showing off their serious skills on a blank stage that shifts with coloured lights and expressive costumes. It's also a joy to watch, uniformly fluid and buoyant, with moments of sharp impact.

Nearly forgotten, Ashley Page's Larina Waltz was created in 1993 to showcase principal couples during a tribute to Tchaikovsky. The old school choreography is fizzy and bouncy, as five pairs take turns in the spotlight, leaping and twirling, then coming together to make a group impact. Kenneth MacMillan's Ballade is a gorgeous piece for guest artist Alina Cojocaru and three men who are sitting around a table. The guys take turns making her float weightlessly around the stage as they lift her into the air and elegantly pass her between them. The narrative loosely offers each as a possible partner, but there's never a sense of competition, as the tone remains light and playful, and ends on a sweet note.

Arielle Smith's Five Dances is an evocative series of performances that are marked with shifting colours and light, as six dancers appear in various groupings, sometimes in couples or alone. The first piece is classical, and the movement becomes increasingly modern through each dance, creating visceral shapes as the performers run, leap and, in the articulate Arthur Wille's case, slide. The music also becomes increasingly rhythmic, adding kinetic energy to the physicality. There are also some terrific sight gags and group formations, culminating in a fabulous final leap. Concerto (Second Movement) is another piece by MacMillan, as Joseph Taylor and Isadora Bless tentatively approach, then he supports her, lifts and places her in a variety of beautiful positions. It's lyrical and intriguing.

Finally, Eve is choreographed by the company's artistic director Christopher Marney. It begins with a clever use of projection before leading into a new take on Eve's interaction with the serpent. Cira Robinson is spinning alone on stage when the shadowy serpent (Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla) begins bargaining with her. Tender and sensual, their full-bodied dance reveals a fascinatingly complex connection as the story develops vividly. This includes the sudden appearance of an apple, as well as a group of dancers in skin-toned costumes who envelop her. And an inventive use of shadows create moments of dramatic intensity.

While everything here is performed with stunning levels of skill, there's an almost stubbornly dated feeling to the entire programme, partly because of the simplicity of the stage design and also because each number is so resolutely binary, with men leading each dance as they show off their women. But there are breathtaking elements scattered throughout, and hints that the tables are turning. 

For details: LONDON CITY BALLET >

photos by ASH • 12.Sep.24

Critical Week: Let it all go

I've been working very long hours on a TV crew these days, so haven't had a lot of time to keep up with film releases. So I only managed to see four movies in the past seven days! (But I am very much enjoying working on set each day.) One of the big releases this week, Speak No Evil stars Scoot McNairy and James McAvoy (above) in a hugely unsettling thriller that starts light and almost comical before twisting the suspense to nail-biting levels in the final act. And then Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield came along for a Q&A with director John Crowley for We Live in Time, a powerfully involving emotional drama that feels bracingly authentic. It's bound to get awards-season attention.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
My Old Ass • In Camera
Speak No Evil • Winner
My Favourite Cake
ALL REVIEWS >

The biopic Winner is the third movie in recent years to tell the story of the whisleblower Reality Winner, this time with a snappy comical edge. Emilia Jones is excellent in the title role, and the film properly gets under her skin. And Dead Teenagers is the third scary film in writer-director Quinn Armstrong's Fresh Hell trilogy, this time cleverly twisting the teenage summer movie into something meta and genuinely creepy.

I'll have a little more time to attend screenings this coming week, so I'm planning to see the animated adventure Transformers One, Will Ferrell's documentary Will & Harper, reform school drama Nickel Boys, British comedy-drama Portraits of Dangerous Women, New York comedy Notice to Quit and British horror Inherit the Witch, plus anything else I can find time to see. 

Critical Week: Say no more

Working long days as part of a TV series crew doesn't leave a lot of time for watching movies, so I've only seen a handful of films this week - either late at night or on days off. Alicia Vikander stars as Katherine Parr in Firebrand opposite Jude Law as a particularly corpulent Henry VIII. It's a very well made film, if a bit on the dry side for such a, ahem, beefy tale. Michael Keaton is back 35 years later for more ghostly hijinks in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as are Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara. Tim Burton brings a robust energy to the film, although as before there's not much to it.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Apollo Thirteen: Survival
His Three Daughters
ALL REVIEWS >

Ian McKellen gleefully munches the scenery as the title character in The Critic, set in London's theatre world in 1934, with strong support from Gemma Arterton and Mark Strong. The dialog crackles, but the plot gets bogged down in corny twists. Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark are excellent as always in the British folk horror thriller Starve Acre, which is superbly creepy and very yucky, if never terribly scary. And I revisited one of my very favourite films for its 50th anniversary: Young Frankenstein is perhaps Mel Brooks' finest movie, a warm homage that's packed with classic hilarious moments featuring the ace Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Peter Boyle and Madeline Kahn. I could happily watch this movie every day, forever.

This coming week, I'm watching James McAvoy in Speak No Evil, whistleblower biopic Winner, Scottish thriller Kill and teen anime Trapezium, plus anything else I can find time to watch while working long days.