Akram Khan's Gisele at London Coliseum

This was another show that crept under my radar, even though I subscribe to a vast number of arts emails (the volume may be part of the problem1), and it was a late decision to go, prompted by good reviews.

I was lucky with returns and got seat Upper Circle: A5 for a no-brainer £67.

I had seen Giselle many years before as a traditional ballet but this version promised "mesmerising choreography blends ballet with classical Indian dance kathak and contemporary movement, harnessing groups of dancers to dial up the intensity in every scene" which sounded very interesting, and I like interesting.

This version of Gisele combined so many things that I love including industrial music, low lighting, large groups of dancers, a simple set and unusual movements. The mix of dancing styles was obvious and worked very well.

My lasting image of the performance is the workers moving synchronously to the dark repetitive music as they did their task, which is why I chose the image above from the several available.

There was a story in there too but frankly I cared little for it and made no attempt to follow it, this was a dance of moods and movement and those did not need a narrative to justify them,

There were only a few performances at London Coliseum but a show this good must reappear somewhere before too long and I will gladly travel to anywhere (sensible) in the country to see it again.

Akram Khan's Gisele at London Coliseum was the best dance show I have ever seen.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Sadler's Wells (25 Jan 25)

Sadler's Wells has the admirable habit of running a Matthew Bourne ballet over the Christmas period and in to the New Year and my equally admiral habit is to go on, or near, my birthday. This year it was a slightly refreshed Swan Lake and that is as close to unmissable as you can get. I have seen it many times for very good reasons.

Frankly, £45 for Seat 4 in Row A of the Second Circle was something of a steal.

The pre-theatre meal in Banana Tree, a regular venue for me, was a near disaster despite booking a table beforehand. For reasons never explained, we had to wait almost half an hour for a table. At least they were reasonably apologetic about it, priorities our order and gave us a discount. The food was good too.

That little annoyance over, I settled into my seat ready to be swept away by the music and movement.

I think I spotted a couple of very minor changes in this production (there may well have been many more that I missed) but it was very much the show that I knew and loved and I loved it again.

I have nothing to add to what I have said about Swan Lake before, it is just a sumptuous mix of music and movement that captivated me for a couple of hours.

I thought that it had only been a few months since I saw Swan Lake at the cinema but, apparently, it was almost a year and a half ago. Here's hoping that the next wait to see it is not to long either.

Edward Scissorhards at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Sadler's Wells has the charming habit of putting a Matthew Bourne show on over Christmas and I have the equally charming habit of going to them all. Often this has been on my birthday but this year the run did not extend to the end of January so I went for an early December date instead.

This year the show was Edward Scissorhards which I was really looking forward to not having seen it since 2009! Booking and seat selection were easy and I got Second Circle Row A Seat 28 for just £45.

Banana Tree is my pre-Sadler's Wells eatery of choice and it is for many people so I booked a table for 6pm to be safe. That proved to be a wise decision.

Eating at 6 also meant plenty of time to grab a beer at the theatre before the show. These rituals matter.

My memories of Edward Scissorhards were slight, having seen it only once and that all but fifteen years ago so I settled down to enjoy the show afresh, and enjoy it I did.

It had all the characteristics of a Matthew Bourne ballet with heaps of skilful choreography, especially when the stage is full of dancers, where the patterns of movement the ensemble make are much more than the sum of the individual parts.

A nice aspect of this show is that it has two moods with light domestic scenes and dark gothic ones, with music and dancing to match.

The story was good too. It closely followed the original film whereas most Bourne ballets, e.g. Swan Lake, deliberately chose new paths to take. It was captivating and emotional throughout, helped significantly by the portrayal of Edward. 

It is hard to compare these things but on this showing Edward Scissorhards is my second favourite Matthew Bourne show after the iconic, and original, Swan Lake. I just hope that I do not have to wait another fifteen years before it comes back again.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Olympic Cinema

I have seen Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake several times, usually at Sadlers Wells, and when a chance Tweet alerted me to it being shown at cinemas I rushed to find a local showing.

Screenings had already started and so my choices were very limited but there was a morning slot at Olympic Cinema in Barnes. I had walked past the building several times and had admired the 1900's architectural style of it so welcomed this chance to go inside.

In less time than it has taken to write this I had booked my ticket for £10.

Getting there was fairly straightforward, two buses, a 65 and a 33, took me more-or-less door to door and in enough time to get a coffee from the cafe in the same building.

It turned out that, somehow that completely escapes me, I had booked for a Babes In Arms screening and the only other people in the cinema where a family with a toddler and a mother with a baby. There was quite a bit of gurgling, whispering and paper rustling but I have had children and am used to ignoring their distracting behaviour.

Besides, this was Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake and it would have taken something quite gruesome to spoil that.

Of course Swan Lake starts with the advantage of Tchaikovsky's sumptuous music and I was silently humming along to all the familiar tunes.

Swan Lake made Matthew Bourne's reputation and it is easy to see why. The choreography is busy with so much going on even in the quieter scenes. I spent a lot of time admiring the details of hand and head movements. This is unapologetic contemporary dance with intricate shapes and unusual movements, so unlike the traditional ballet with its jumps and spins.

And because there is just so much details dancing going on all the time a lot of it had been forgotten and could be enjoyed again as if new.

The story is better too with the fill-in dances in the original ballet being incorporated into the story. This is particularly true with the succession of national dances in the ball scene in Act 3.

It is hard to overstate just how much I enjoyed Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake even on film in a cinema shared with children.

After the film there was only one sensible thing to do and that was to have lunch in the Olympic Restaurant. That was a little more pricey than I am used to, but their menu outside had warned me of that and it was well in the price range of a deserved treat.

I think I will be going back to Olympic Cinema and I will most definitely be seeing Swan Lake again the next time I get the opportunity to do so.

Cowpuncher My Ass at Royal Festival Hall

Cowpuncher My Ass is not the sort of show that I would normally consider seeing but my account with Southbank Centre has a lot of credit on it that I need to spend. It is modern dance and I do not see enough of that (mostly through lack of opportunity) so I willingly parted with £40 for seat  J31 in the stalls.

I was quickly reminded why I normally avoid stalls seats as the young man directly in front of me was tall enough to interrupt my view of the stage. Luckily it is a wide stage and the visual interruption while undesired was not not catastrophic. Likewise the nearby audience members  checking their phones, chatting and playing with drink bottles. I have had much worse experiences.

The show itself was much less weird than I expected but that is probably more a reflection on my tastes in modern dance than it is on the show.

Most of the dancers were on the stage most of the time and they were mostly doing different things so there was always a choice of what to look at. 

The costumes, each was different, very much helped with the visuals and knowing they were by Andreas Kronthalera, Vivienne Westwood's widow, you can guess what they were like. The poster helps too.

The music was composed my Mica Levi, not a name I knew but the style was similar to some of the Bang on a Can composers I do know, such as Michael Gordon.

The music was loud and the choreography by Holly Blakey was exuberant and expressive with lots of movement which made it a fun to watch. However, it also lacked something to make it rise above mere (?) entertainment. As one review I read put it "f you’re a creative but not primarily in dance, I think most would consider it the dog’s bollocks. But if you’re a dance aficionado, it’s probably a bit tiresome".

I am glad that I was almost forced into seeing Cowpuncher My Ass at Royal Festival Hall and as it was effectively free I can have no complaints over an entertaining 75 minutes.

Ek/ Forsythe/ Quagebeur at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

One of my worst kept resolutions is to see more dance. Seeing the Ek/ Forsythe/ Quagebeur triple bill at Sadler’s Wells Theatre was only a small step in fixing that but it was a very enjoyable step and one that confirmed sense of my resolution as well as the stupidity of my failure to keep to it.

The only part of the triple bill that had any recognition for me was the final part, The Rite of Spring choreographed Mats Ek. My first encounter with Ek is lost in the midst of time but it, and a few subsequent exposures, were enough for me to make the booking, Second Circle Row A Seat 5  for £35.

Being a matinee meant that I had to find somewhere to have lunch and Fox Garden Court Cafe, in the Sadler’s Wells complex but accessed through a different door, proved well up to the mark and I had a lovey spicy vegetarian mulligatawny soup. Having found it I shall be using the cafe again.

I love dance but have no idea how to describe it! The three pieces had some similar tropes in that they all used several dancers in varying numbers, were all modern in style and all focussed mostly on the limbs. The different styles of the three sets of music was the main difference between the dances, though I am sure that somebody who knows more about dance than me (not difficult) would spot significant stylistic differences.

I went primarily to see The Rite of Spring by Mats Ek and that was my favourite piece. The Stravinsky music, played by a live orchestra, helped as did the more astute choreography, there was just more going on and more of it was unusual. That said, all three pieces were thoroughly entertaining and very well received.

And I got a boost to my more dance resolution too. Sadler's Wells had screens in the front of house (and cafe) trailing some forthcoming shows and I was excited enough at the prospect of Bat out of Hell and their sister theatre, the Peacock, to book that for next February.

maliphantworks3 at The Coronet Theatre

Getting to see dance in South West London remains a challenge so the opportunity to see maliphantworks3 at The Coronet Theatre was a no-brainer, especially so as I had enjoyed maliphantworks2 there almost two years previously.

This time we went with friends. It was too difficult to meet up beforehand with us coming from three different directions after doing three different things but somehow we all found ourselves in the Old Swan at the same time. It was a pub I knew reasonably well from my many visits to the Czech and Slovak Embassies nearby and while the pub did nothing special the beer and vegetarian fish and chips were perfectly acceptable. They both did the job.

It was a short walk from there to The Coronet Theatre and we made sure that we arrived in good time to enjoy another drink in what must be the most eclectic theatre bar in London.

The performance opened with the main (i.e. longest) piece of the evening, The Space Between, developed with a video artist. Here light and sound were as important as the dancers who were often lost in the darkness only to slide back into view again. Possibly not for dance purists but I loved it.

After a short break we had two short films that had even less dance in them and just about took me to my limit of being able to accept this as dance. Perhaps that was the point. They were still attention grabbing but in a different way.

The evening closed with Duet which I had seen and loved before, and loved again. It was similar to the first piece with the lighting playing a lesser role, that did not make it better but it did make it different.

The dancing throughout was gentle and fluid, no leaps or rolls here, and the focus was very much on the upper body. The deliberate gloom and the clothing his the details and what we saw was shapes rather than gestures. It was a mood to sweep you along rather than something to focus intently on.

If there is ever a maliphantworks4 I will be going to see that too.

Swan Lake at Richmond Theatre was a treat

Swan Lake is the most famous ballet for a reason and I needed no excuse to see it yet again.

There was a minor issue with the booking and my usual seat was taken forcing me into the one next to it, Dress Circle A26, which cost just  £21.5 because of the safety rail slightly impeding the view.

I had forgotten that I had been promised a live orchestra so my pleasure started as soon as I arrived and saw the musicians in place at the front of the stalls.

Swan Lake then did very much what I expected it to do. The music was lovely throughout and having a live orchestra certainly helped here.

The dancing was a little unambitious and a little flaccid but it was always pretty enough and the showpiece Dance of the Cygnets was executed well.

There were some other minor niggles, such as the unhealthy physique of some of the dancers (far too thin) and the stops for applause after every little dance. The beauty of the music easily managed to soar above the weaknesses and the evening was a joyous treat, despite the ending!

maliphantworks2 at Print Room was dramatic and lovely

Dance is all too rare a beast in the otherwise expansive cultural richness that is London. There is Sadler's Wells and that is about it. That alone would have tempted me to go and the name Maliphant made it compulsory. I had seen several of his pieces performed by other artists, notably Balletboyz, and was keen to see his own group do them so I promptly paid my £25 for Seat D6.

I had not been to Print Room for a few months (there are a lot of theatres in London!) and had forgotten that there were so many cafes nearby so I settled for a vegetable pasty from Wimbledon Station instead. Next time. I had remembered how good the par was there though and before going in I helped myself to a London IPA and had a look at the curiosities adorning the room.

There was a nice symmetry to the evening. There were four dancers, two men and two women, and four pieces and the evening went two men, two women, interval, first mixed couple, second mixed couple.

In Critical Mass the two men, Russell Maliphant was one of them, danced vigorously and closely. It was a display of technical excellence and deep trust. It was two men working together to a common end, co-workers not lovers. The working aspect was reinforced by their matching blue shirts. In it's mood it reminded me of the gorgeous wall scene in The Rodin Project.

Two Times Two was a study in light. The two women were dressed in black outfits with no sleeves that helped to hide their bodies and accentuate their arms. They danced separately in two blurs of whirling and stabbing arms.

Still (an ironic title) played more tricks with lights as bar-code like lines flew confusingly across the stage. The strobe effect was striking as it hid and illuminated different parts of the dancers in quick succession. It was an energetic dance too making full use of the stage.

Duet saw Russell Maliphant and one of the women dance a piece that was almost the mirror of the first except that this time they were definitely a couple and the dancing was slower and more tender.

Even with the interval it was a short show, not much over an hour, but I had no complaints about that.  All of the pieces were dramatic and lovely and they also worked together nicely to make it a sumptuous performance.

Lovely Swan Lake from the Moscow City Ballet at Richmond Theatre

Once upon a Time I had a season ticket for the Royal Ballet and went to see everything that the English National Ballet did too then kids came along and the time and the money went on them instead.

In recent years I have been seeing a fair amount of dance (not enough) but surprisingly little "traditional" ballet. The closest I have come to that was Mark Morris' Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican over seven years ago!

So going to see Swan Lake should have been an easy decision to make and it was, eventually. Swan Lake was only on for two nights, Nutcracker was on the rest of the week and that was quite missable, and by the time that I made the obvious decision the front row of the Dress Circle had been taken so I went even further up and went for the front row of the Upper Circle (seat A16). Even that lofty perch cost me £26 as ballet is an expensive business, Swan Lake has a large cast and this production had a good sized orchestra too.

The front row seats have a bar in front that threatens to block the view of the stage, unless you are tall enough to see over it easily, which I am not. The solution was to sit forward on my seat and use my screwed up coat as a cushion to keep me upright and comfortable. It worked very well.

The audience worked less well, often a problem in the "cheap seats", and there were conversations all evening, some sweet bag rustling and also one mobile phone call. Fortunately this kept below the infuriating level and while it distracted at moment it did not do so enough to ruin the show.

There were lots of other things that I did not like about this performance. There were some plot changes that I did not comprehend (I did not buy a programme), such as the additional appearance of Odette/Odile in a black and white outfit. There was an additional male role and I could not tell which one was Sigfriend until Act 2 (and my guess was wrong). Siegfried spent more time dancing alone that with Odette/Odile and his dancing did not wow me. Odette/Odile danced better but did not quite look the part. The cast milked the applause ending each short dance with a spectacular pose and then coming to the front of the stage for more applause.

If that all sounds like a bad night at the theatre then you are wrong. I loved it immensely. Possibly not every single minute of it but not far off it.

Even with the problems that I listed earlier it is hard to get Swan Lake wrong as it is Swan Lake and its strength comes from the music that throws one tune after another in the two set dancing scenes in the castle and that builds the drama in the two scenes at the lake. Here the full orchestra came in to their own and carried the evening along magnificently.

The second great strength of Swan Lake is the set dance pieces, especially those choreographed by Lev Ivanov in Act 2, including the arrival of the swans with their flat footed hops and the dance of the cygnets with their tightly synchronised leg movements. I may have lost some of the plot but this was familiar territory, even after several years, and it was much loved territory too.

Other things I enjoyed in this Swan Lake were the ensemble dancing, the sumptuous costumes and the simplicity of the set that made lots of space for dancing and did not over-engineer the dramatic finale.

Writing this a few days later some of the tunes are still bouncing around my head where they collide with images of the production. Swan Lake is a tremendous ballet and even a slightly flawed production like this one is still a fantastic experience.

Ockham's Razor's Tipping Point at the Platform Theatre was beautiful

Once again I have Twitter to thank for alerting me to this event and it would have been something of a disaster if I had missed it. I had seen Ockham's Razor twice previously, both times at the Rose Theatre in Kingston (where I live) and had loved them. This time they were performing at the Platform Theatre, part of the Central Saint Martins complex which dominates the view from my office window; the hardest part of the journey there is waiting for a lift down from the seventh floor.

It is only a two minute walk to the theatre unless you take a detour like I did. I had to eat something somewhere and nothing locally appealed to me that much so I walked a mile east to Angel Islington where there was a Wagamama and then a mile back again. Those steps were good for my daily count too.

The stage for Tipping Point was set (mostly) in the round and so it was easy for me to find a seat in one of the four front-rows. I went for one in a corner to get the longer view alone a diagonal.

It was one piece in several sections, running for a total of around 75 minutes without a break. Each piece used beams and used them in several different ways.

The mood was set with the first piece in which a beam full of sand (or something similar) was used to slowly draw a circle that defined the field of play. This boundary was treated with reverence by the performers who frequently had to pull themselves up short to avoid crossing it. Another game they played was to avoid the beams as they swung from their supports.

The performance was structured with a series of set pieces, usually with just one or two performers, exploring one specific aspect of working with beams and the ranges of movement that they allow.  These pieces were connected by group pieces that rearranged the beams and played a game with them.

The ending mirrored the opening with a suspended beam again spilling sand but this time it was allowed to swing to make a Spirograph like pattern.

Tipping Point was much as I expected (and hoped) with the movement being a combination of impressive circus skills and beautiful dance set to lovely music. It was gorgeous to watch and I was captivated by it throughout.

Then things got even better with the announcement that there would be a Q&A session with all the performers and the other creatives involved in Ockham's Razor's which obviously I stayed on for. This was very insightful in understanding how they approach their work. It all starts with the apparatus and each of their works has deliberately used different thinks. They then explore the physical capabilities of the apparatus and themselves to see what they can do. This creates the pieces of movement that are then put together to create the performance.

In this case the choice of beams also dictated the shape of the stage, a circle, and suggested that it be performed in the round. That information came in part from a response to my question. I had asked about the staging as the first time that I saw them we were able to walk around the apparatus and the second was presented in standard theatre mode. They liked the walk around mode, as did I, but that limited the number of people they could admit and the economics are always a consideration. We both agreed that performing in the round was a good compromise.

The other main insight was the use of the word "ritual" in response to another question. That helped to make sense of both their response to the sand boundary of the performance area and the way that they shared chalk powder between the main set pieces.

Ockham's Razor are a unique company and what they do is very wonderful.

Sumptuous Sleeping Beauty at Sadler's Wells

A recent Christmas tradition, and one that I heartily approve of, is to go and see a Matthew Bourne ballet and this usually mean a trip to Sadler's Wells. Of course there are other occasions and other theatres where his style of dance can be appreciated and I get to as many of those as I can, even when it means going to Wimbledon to do so.

I had been to see Sleeping Beauty almost three years previously and rereading that write-up now it almost reads as if I was damning it with faint praise so I was a little cautious when going to see it again. Being cautious did not extent to missing the show or even going for cheaper seats and so I went for my usual place, the Second Circle, and my usual front-row seat, this time it was A17 and it cost me £32. I had been there or thereabouts before and I like it there.

Sadler's Wells goes for the heavy safety curtain so there is nothing very much to photograph but I took a "my view" shot anyway. The safety rail looks prominent but it was not, I had the camera low to avoid attention and, even so, the bar was still below the stage.

Having seen Sleeping Beauty just the once, and then a few years previously, there was much about the performance that I had forgotten and so could appreciate for the first time again.

What was familiar to me was the Tchaikovsky music and the general flavour of the choreography, and I liked both so I knew that I was in for a treat.

Watching Sleeping Beauty again enabled me to appreciate from of the bigger things that I had missed the first time when trying to catch all the detail. The story was very well told. I like the way that Matthew Bourne tells stories with his dances whereas classic ballet often uses a simple story to stage set dances. The dancing, like the story, was split in two halves, before and after the long sleep. Before the sleep the style was Edwardian tea dance, though with Bourne's unusual movements, and after the sleep the dance was modern. The Sleeping Beauty spent a surprising amount of the time in the air being lifted, carried, thrown and (thankfully) caught.

I appreciated the little stuff again too. Bourne's choreography makes great use of arms, heads and legs to make angular shapes that if somebody on the tube made would make you laugh but here the shapes were joined by the movement to transition between them and the music to set the pace and the mood. The combined package was a thing of beauty. Humour played a part too, as it always does with Bourne.

All the little touches in the story, movement, set and costumes added to the richness of the experience and it is that richness that endears me to Bourne so much.

Young Men by BalletBoyz at Sadler's Wells

I knew exactly what to expect from Young Men by BalletBoyz at Sadler's Wells because I had seen it before. I wanted to see it again because it was fantastic the first time. It was fantastic the second time too.

On my previous trip there we had all gone to the Banana Tree first but this time I fancied something a little posher and went for The Gate. This also had the advantage of being a vegetarian restaurant so there was much more choice and I did not have ask what the strange sounding foreign foods were.

The 6:30 booking was necessary as the place was soon packed. I was a little optimistic in going for a starter as well as a main course but the food was so tempting that I had to try two things. I almost thought about panicking at one stage but the food did arrive just in time and by paying the bill while still eating I was able to leave the restaurant at 7:20, which was plenty of time to get to Sadler's Wells for the 7:30 start.

As before, I went for the front row of the Second Circle where seat A18 was a bargain £22. It's worth repeating that the advantage of being high for shows like this is that you can see the full depth of the stage and can see the patterns that the dancers make as they move across it. I cannot imagine watching a ballet like this from the Stalls and only getting a front-on view.

I had a good idea of what to expect having seen the performance before but my memory was more of the shape than of the detail as there was just too much going on across the whole stage all of the time to remember many of the specifics. So even though this was a second viewing it felt much like a first.

My memories were of BalletBoyz's staple ingredients like intricate interactions as the dancers flowed around, over and under each other at a breathtaking pace, the dancers acting in small groups that kept changing size and the dominance of movement on the ground above movement in the air. To that I could add the specific details of the arm and upper body movements.

I only remembered the mood of the music too and it was good to hear that again too.

Young Men was intensely visual with many striking images. The ones that haunt the most afterwards are the men running and then falling when shot, and the men running towards the front of the stage then sliding. It was a vigorous performance but not an overly physical one, there was all the trademark BalletBoyz delicate movement too.

Young Men was a great ballet that I enjoyed as least as much on the second viewing as the first and I am hoping for a third one day, which is quite possible as they have been filming it.

Sylvie Guillem's Life in Progress at the London Coliseum

Sylvie Guillem's Life in Progress was her world-wide farewell and while it was sad to see her leave the stage after so many years it was also a worthy celebration of a great talent that still shone brightly.

I wanted to go because I have loved her dancing ever since I was a season ticket holder at the Royal Ballet in the late 80s. It was my last chance to see her and my last chance to say "thank you" by being there.

It was billed as a Sadler's Wells event but was staged at the London Coliseum, presumably because it was bigger. I surprised myself by being able to get a front row seat in the Balcony (the uppermost of four levels) for the bargain price of £20. I chose the seat not for the price but for the view, it was some distance from the stage but for dance (and opera) I prefer to be able to see the whole stage, not just the front of it.

I was not sure how much Sylvie I was going to see and was deliriously happy that she did so much. It was easy to forget that she was fifty years old, especially when she did her trade-marked vertical leg trick.

The performance was also pleasingly longer than I expected. Some dance that I have seen recently has been something like two 25 minutes half, understandable given the physical effort involved, so I was delighted to see four pieces.

The evening opened with a Sylvie solo performed with live musicians on stage half-hidden behind netting. It was poetically choreographed by Akram Khan. The next piece was strange, and I like strange, but was a duet with two men and I was there to see Sylvie. The third piece was a lovely duet with Sylvie and Emanuela Montanari, the first piece she had ever done with another woman. This was choreographed by Russell Maliphant so it was no surprise that I liked it.

After the break came the biggest and best surprise of the evening. Syvlie performed Mats Ek’s solo piece Bye which I had seen her do two years previously on her 6000 Miles Away tour. I loved it then and I loved it (at least) as much this time. It was a fitting end to a fantastic show and a glorious career.

Ockham's Razor return to the Rose Theatre for another magical show

Having caught Ockham's Razor almost by accident on their previous on their previous visit to the Rose Theatre I was quick to book to see them on their return.

I would have been even quicker if not for the poor way that the Rose advertises shows that are not its own productions. All there was on the website was a thumbnail picture and the title "Triple Bill" and the emails were much the same. On my initial scan I missed the show and I think it was only thanks to a comment on Twitter that I learned that this was Ockham's Razor and so was a show that I had to see.

They were only playing for a few nights and so I found myself going on a Monday evening, not a usual theatre night. I worked at home that day (often a good idea on a Monday after the pub quiz on Sunday) and that made it an easy walk in to town for the evening show. I timed my walk to get there just before the show started as experience had taught me that there was no point trying to get a drink there beforehand as the queues are too long and the bar staff too few. Something else the Rose had to fix.

I do not understand the pricing policy at the Rose, or even who decides it, but at £10 my seat in my favoured Centre Stalls Row A (47) was a steal. I would not have thought twice at paying double that and would not have had to think for too long to pay more than that.

The arrangements were very different this time. Previously they had performed in the round with the audience free to roam and while that added to the excitement they worked just as well on a traditional stage. There was not a lot on that stage, just their equipment and that was not very substantial.

Ockham's Razor do something unique, as far as I am aware, in producing shows that combine gymnastic skills with the beauty of dance and the structure of story-telling.

The opening piece, Arc, typified all of this. It was performed on a grid suspended above the stage and to make things harder the grid swung and spun. The movement was smooth and balletic rather than energetic and circus-like. The story of the three people stuck together had moments of tension, tenderness and humour - I loved the little section where they played "It".

The photograph was taken at the start of the second half with the piece Every Action that used robes to connect four people. In the simplest form one person going up meant another one coming down. The actions were more complex than that and the four performers moved together in interesting and clever ways.

The final piece was a duet on a trapeze like metal frame. Despite the name, Memento Mori (The Dance of Death) this was a slow and gentle piece where the two people flowed around and over each other beautifully.

The three pieces were quite different in the mood they created and in the equipment they used which all added to the interest and entertainment. I am still not sure how to categorise Ockham's Razor so I will just settle for saying that it is physically clever, visually exciting and thoroughly entertaining.

A lively The Car Man thrills at Wimbledon Theatre

Every time I write about dance I say that I should see more of it but, Sadler's Wells apart (and that is not very close) chances are few and far between so I make an effort to get to the ones that I can. This time that effort was forking out £36 for a seat (E23) in the fifth row of the Dress Circle.

It was an easy decision to break my own rules on pricing and seating to see The Car Man again, a show I had only seen once before way back in 2007. Not only had I enjoyed it then but it was by Matthew Bourne and I have loved everything of his that I have seen.

I try to plan my work around my theatre and had booked for a Friday so that I could work at home and then catch a couple of buses into Wimbledon for the evening show, pausing at Mai Thai on the way for something tasty to eat. I like to have a designated restaurant for each theatre that I go to regularly and Mai Thai fits the bill nicely.

In a break from what was tradition I did not go to the pub across the road or to the theatre bar before the show. I was not overly cutting down on my drinking but I was easing one or two out of the schedule just to help.

The view was much better than I expected with my fear of taller people sitting in front of me and I had a good view of the stage with no interruptions.

It had been a long time since I had last seen The Car Man so I sat down ready to be surprised and delighted all over again.

It was described as a reimagining of Carmen, rather than a retelling, and the story was very different. There was a cameo of the original in one scene with some Flamenco dancers in a bar reenacted part of her tragic story.

In The Car Man, Matthew Bourne played to all his strengths with lots of vibrant dancing, mostly in groups and with lots of things going on at the same time all across the stage. It was boisterous, energetic, flamboyant, sexy and huge fun. It may have been inspired by Carmen but there the mood is almost unremittingly gloomy (as the ending is long predicted) whereas here it was mostly jolly, despite some of the dark things that happened.

The poster at the top says it all really and, for once, was a true reflection of what the show was like. This is how I would dance if I could dance, but as I cannot dance like that I'll happily settle for watching other people do so instead.

This was, of course, a dance with a story to tell and there was plenty of acting as well as dancing, as always with Matthew Bourne. And, as with the dancing, this was not confined to the lead roles. This was an ensemble performance and a very good one too.

It was also good to see The Car Man playing to a packed house and showing that dance can be as popular and as entertaining as the familiar musicals that often show up at theatres like Wimbledon.

The only regret from the evening was realising that I had no more dance in my  diary to look forward too. Sadly, that is a recurring problem.

Young Men by BalletBoyz at Sadler's Wells was exhilarating and exhausting

It's only a minor gripe but I'll start with it anyway. Sadler's Wells do nice posters for all their shows but they do not put them online for people like me to reuse. The only picture I could find with even the name of the show on it was in an email sent to me and this does not have the theatre name on it, let alone the performance dates.

Sadler's Wells also has a plain black safety curtain that is firmly down except for the performance so there was no point me taking the usual this-is-my-view photo. It would have hurt nobody to leave the curtain up at the end.

Other than those ever so minor gripes the evening was fantastic.

I went with some friends and we arranged to meet at the Banana Tree at 6pm because it was nearby and having eaten there once before I had always intended to go back one day. Somehow, despite all travelling independently from different places, we all arrived at much the same down and settled down to a good meal. Booking proved to be a good idea and the place was soon full with people waiting for a free table.

Mostly thanks to my friends, I had booked some really cheap seats (Second Circle A24 to A27, four Standard @ £22.00 each) which proved to be an inspired choice. I think we had some of the best seats in the house. That was because from that height we could see the full depth of the stage and the patterns the dancers made across it. From the Stalls, as shown below, the dancers at the front obscure those at the back and that is a real problem when those at the back are doing something very different, which in Young Men they did all the time.

Young Men was an exploration of war and the large number of young men killed, injured and damaged in war. It was told in six tableaux of about ten minutes each with a break for a bottle of Prosecco after four.

I went to see the BalletBoyz dance and had little expectations for the music so I was delighted to hear the repetitive beats made popular and familiar by Philip Glass. Actually Michael Nyman was closer to the mark and I was almost expecting to hear Memorial Requiem at one point. The composer was Keaton Henson, a name that was completely new to me and I am not much wiser having looked him up. All that really mattered was that this was the sort of music that I like and adding dancing to it just made it that much better.

The dancing was fairly typical BalletBoyz albeit by a new choreographer, Iván Pérez. There was lots of intricate movement as the dancers intertwined their bodies, the movement flowed quickly from one dancer to the next, there were several different things going on at the same time, a lot of the dancing was done on the ground and the eleven men worked in formations of various and changing sizes. It was exhilarating and exhausting to watch.

Another plus was that most of the music was played live by a small orchestra partially hidden behind a net at the back of the screen.

This was the most complete and satisfying performance that I have seen from the BalletBoyz. So much so that I am making plans to see it again. Soon.

BalletBoyz at Richmond Theatre

For some reason I've dropped off the Richmond Theatre emailing list, despite subscribing with multiple email addresses, so it took the good will of a friend to alert me to the return of BalletBoyz who I had last seen there almost exactly a year before. She also did the hard work of getting the tickets.

We were well placed in the stalls, my seat was H8, and I was pleased that the offset seating gave me a clear view of the stage.

BalletBoyz were touring their theTALENT show which I had seen all or parts of twice the previous year. I was looking forward to seeing it again as dance, like music, gets better the more it is experienced as that allows the detail to shine through.

The first piece, by Liam Scarlett, was a series of connected short pieces that usually featured just a few of the eleven dancers. It was very episodic and the episode that stuck in my mind the most had the dancers in pairs performing a series of arm and head movements that looked as though they were fighting each other, but it was much prettier than that.

That quick-fire section of short delicate moves was something of an exception and the signature movement across the whole piece was full arm swings, a la Pete Townsend.

In the second half it was Russell Maliphant's turn to show us what he could do with the BalletBoyz. His approach was more collegiate, it started with all eleven dancers on stage forming two concentric circles, and more physical with plenty of lifting and climbing. He weaved patterns with his dancers that filled the stage with so much movement that it was hard to keep score.

My companion for the evening uttered a very audible "Wow!" at one point and I was forced to glare at her, though I could understand her reasons.

BalletBoyz show that male dance is no longer simply about leaping high and that physical strength can be used to more subtle and more beautiful ends.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Sadler's Wells

I have seen Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake a few times, including a previous performance at Sadler's Wells, and there is always room to see it again.

This time I deliberately caught the very last performance of the series as it was almost perfectly timed for my birthday on the following day.

Knowing Sadler's Wells reasonably well I was happy to go for the cheap seats (£32) in the front row of the Second Circle (A5). I was perfectly happy with that as I had a good view of the full stage and no heads to look over.

The last time that I saw Swan Lake, at Wimbledon, was with recorded music so it was nice to have a proper orchestra this time. There were not that many of them, and the pit looked quite empty, but they made plenty of noise. Another advantage of being up high was being able to see them.

Swan Lake was magical from the well-known opening bar. The long success of the ballet is largely due to Tchaikovsky's music.

Matthew Bourne's version of the story has become familiar too and so there were no surprises there.

The richness and the variety of the movement is what had brought me back for another dose. There is so much going on all the time so there is lots of dancing that I had either missed previously or had forgotten.

Of course there was much that I remembered, and loved, too. Things like the frantic dancing in the Swank nightclub and the perky little dance with the four cygnets.

Bourne's choreography is all about arms. They swoop and sway around the head and torso, pulling the upper body in to dramatic shapes with them as they do so. It's quite different from the traditional leaping or the contemporary tumbling and that adds to its interest. The dancing also looks deceptively simple, because it lacks the physical pyrotechnics, and if I had the slightest dancing ability I would like to learn one of their pieces and use it next time I get invited to a ball (not that I ever get invited to balls).

The other feature of the choreography is the ensemble work with so much going on all the time. Again this is a big change from the traditional ballets that I grew up with where only the soloists moved so as not to distract you from them.

Swan Lake was as beautiful and dramatic as I remembered and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Familiarity most definitely does not breed contempt in this case and I'll be going to see it again sometime.

Chelsea Hotel at the Riverside

My approach of booking theatre on the merest whim worked out well yet again with Chelsea Hotel.

This time I thought that I was going to a play and I got an energetic modern dance instead. And that's good.

There were drama elements to Chelsea Hotel but these are told with just a few words and these are spoken in to camera and presented to us on a large screen in the centre of the stage.

The middle of the stage was left bare for us to see the screen and for the dancing. One one side of the stage was a kitchen table with chairs and on the other a wrought iron bed. Hiding behind the bed (most of the time) were three musicians playing guitars, keyboards and drums.

The cast was just four dancers, two men and two women.

The music made the first impact. It was loud and in a rock vein. The brash rhythmic sounds set the tone for the action.

The dancing was a vigorous as the music. There was lots of whole body movement, tumbling and driving across the stage, and physical interplays that mimicked sex and violence. It was all very energetic and athletic, and it was beautiful too.

Chelsea Hotel certainly had a consistent look and feel to it but within that the mood changed with the scenes and the emotions ranged from tender love to violent passion.

My favourite scene was probably the Lesbian Downton Abbey one during which my front row seat brought me into direct contact with one of the dancers. Other front-rowers were touched or approached in other scenes.

A nice touch was the wandering minstrels. The use of wireless technology enabled those playing guitar (they all played more than one instrument) to wander out from behind the bed to show us that they were real people. The drummer also escaped for one particularly rhythmic number and he played his small electronic drum at head height while standing. It all added to the drama.

The combination of the pulsating music, physical action and the close proximity to the action made it an exciting and exhilarating performance. The choreography and overall design was well thought out and constructed. The performers, musicians and dancers, all played their parts well. Blogger's privilege allows me to highlight Jessica Haener whose dancing captivated me the most.

Chelsea Hotel was an excellent show. It was very original but did not rely on its originality alone to make it special.