Review: Northern Ballet’s A Christmas Carol at Nottingham Theatre Royal
The festive spirit has well and truly arrived — and if it was enough to warm Scrooge’s heart it was certainly enough for mine.
Northern Ballet’s A Christmas Carol is currently on stage at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, bringing Dickens’ classic to life through dance.
As someone who has not seen a ballet since I was a small child — another festive treat, The Nutcracker — I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the show.
It took a little while to get used to the lack of speaking, but as the story is so well known, and backed up by some clever musical accompaniment which brought out the emotions of each scene, I soon got into the rhythm of it.
It did not appear to be a traditional ballet by any means, some of the dancing was much less structured than I expected, but none-the-less clearly the work of some very highly skilled dancers and impressive to see.
In particular Lincolnshire native Joseph Taylor stood out as Bob Cratchit, his dancing bringing a real cheer to proceedings as he leaped around the stage, while Filippo Di Vilio was stellar as a grouchy Ebenezer Scrooge, his physicality clearly telling the tale of his journey through Christmases past, present and future and his eventual redemption.
Kudos must also go to the designers behind the production, who bring the back streets of London to life with an atmospheric realism, and the lighting really distinguish the tone of each scene and character.
The only slight shame was that the longer, fuller skirts — presumably chosen for a level of period accuracy — hid a lot of the beautiful lines of the dancers’ moves, although the ghosts’ and spirits costumes were striking.
My favourite of the ghosts was Andrew Tomlinson as the Ghost of Christmas Present, who really embodied the Christmas spirit as he sprinkled sparkles around and sweeped the stage in his magnificent cape.
The cast also feaured children from Gedling Ballet School, as well as a large number of Northern Ballet’s talented dancers.
All in all A Christmas Carol was the perfect treat to get into the festive season, whether a ballet novice or a dance fanatic, and told the tale in a simple yet thoughful way.
