![]() She's happy to leave childhood behind her, with no regrets. They have conspired to turn Drosselmeyer, the magician in charge of the story, into Clara's Doctor Who, taking her on a thrilling journey and, in this version, not returning her home. Christopher Hampson, who choreographed and staged it, has followed Scarfe's lead in outlawing sentimentality. I've come round to this entertainingly irrational production, after disliking it at first for its heartlessness. Why shouldn't snowflakes erupt out of the fridge or an origami bird transport her and the ex-Nutcracker to the Sugar Plum Fairy's chocolate-box kingdom? She's unfazed by the battle between insurgent mice in gasmasks and paratrooper commandos her unorthodox home life has prepared her for anything. In the first-act party, demented Grandpa lusts after pneumatic Miss V Aggra a plume-haired general consorts with a bishop's elephantine wife the maid turns into a vamp and Clara's hooligan brother, Fritz, risks having an Asbo slapped on him.Ĭlara is a mini-ballerina whose white, satin pyjamas keep her girlish once her adventures start. ![]() His is a caricaturist's fantasy of a child's world, where everyone is peculiar. Gerald Scarfe's designs for The Nutcracker turn English National Ballet's current production, concluding its fourth year today, into a pop-up picture book. It will be shown on BBC4 next Sunday at 7.20pm. The bumpier bits in the first half should be ironed out by the time Pinocchio goes on tour, after its Linbury run ends on Saturday. Inventive choreography brings the characters vividly to life, with a show-stopping ensemble number in the second half. Tuckett is excellently served by his cast of dance-actors, including Tom Sapsford as a flea-bitten cat and Charlotte Broom as the vixen who lures donkey-boys to a bad end in a glue factory. Bloated with bombast, his Stromboli is finally deflated by Pinocchio, who pricks his swollen stomach with a splintery finger. Luke Heydon is a lovably eccentric Geppetto, Will Kemp a dastardly, scene-stealing manipulator of toys and boys. He betrays Geppetto's trust by bunking off school and getting involved in puppet master Stromboli's nefarious schemes. His nose really does grow longer when he tells lies. Cathy Marston's Fairy is as bearable as can be, zipping around on her spangled scooter and exposing Pinocchio's unfamiliarity with the truth. Like Tinkerbell, she's a self-righteous pain, her reproaches spoken in voiceover, while the rest of the cast speak for themselves. Geppetto tries to steer him on to the straight and narrow, assisted by the Blue Fairy, who acts as his conscience. His wonky limbs seem to hinge in any direction, as wayward as his sense of what's right or wrong. Matthew Hart's Pinocchio is a perilous innocent, a hazard to himself and others around him. He's the wooden puppet who emerges from a tree trunk when old man Geppetto lops off a branch. But the ingenious sets by the Quay Brothers encourage everyone to use their imaginations and see the world through Pinocchio's curious eyes. The music tends to drown out the words, leaving younger children (and plenty of adults) somewhat in the dark. Martin Ward's score, played on stage, evokes Italian folk tunes, a fairground hurdy-gurdy, a low-life jazz band. The story is told in a semi-nonsensical Eyetalian language, spoken and sung, while much of the action is danced. Pinocchio presents childhood as a state of natural anarchy, ruled over by arbitrary adults often up to no good. That had a wistful narrative about the passing of the seasons, youth, life itself. The result is much less cuddly than Tuckett's previous festive show, The Wind in the Willows, created for the Linbury in 2002. ![]() William Tuckett's new Pinocchio, however, by-passes the Disney animated film and returns to the 1883 book, adapted by children's writer Phil Porter. But over the years, staged versions (and Disney films) have made the past a safer, sweeter place. Pre-Freudian writers of children's tales had no qualms about conjuring up scary nightmares and awful moral fates. Family-friendly though Pinocchio and The Nutcracker may be, the original stories on which they're based are dark and troubling, which is why they have endured. It is a joy to find dance productions at this time of year that aren't drenched in nostalgia for long-lost childhood. English National Ballet, Coliseum, London WC2 ![]()
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