The Nutcracker
by DONALD HUTERA for the Times
published: December 12, 2006

The bustling first act is staged as if inside a storybook frame. Our heroine Clara (Erina Takahashi, too worldly in a Louise Brooks bob the colour of a blood orange) lives in an environment of ostentatious upper-class comfort. ENB’s dancers delve into the broad cartoon behaviour of their characters, none more so than Adam Pudney as the Zimmer-framed Grandpa driven to nimble feats of distraction by the attentions of Jane Haworth’s curvaceous platinum blonde bombshell.

The Nutcracker, The Coliseum, London
by JENNY GILBERT for the Independent
published: December 17, 2006

I'm only guessing, but I'd bet a loud cheer went up last week over the Kensington mews where ENB has its base. Not only have the dancers just learnt that they are to feature in next July's Diana-fest (and in their best rep too: the terrific, heart-stopping entry of the 60-plus swans in Derek Deane's Swan Lake). Better still, they can now see an end to their annual sentence touring the Gerald Scarfe Nutcracker. The announcement of a brand new ballet, The Snow Queen, with choreography by Michael Corder and music by Prokofiev (principally his score from the ballet The Stone Flower) may upset some who see 57 unbroken Christmases of ENB Nutcrackers as an imperative to continue the tradition, but for the rest of us, it's a reprieve.