CriticalDance Forum

Principal Casting

Please note that casting is subject to alteration. The characters are in order: Drosselmeyer/Prince/Sugar Plum

Bristol Hippodrome

Thurs 10 Oct Irek Mukhamedov/Thomas Edur/Agnes Oaks

Fri 11 Oct Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Sat 12 Oct (mat)Avis/Edur/Oaks

Sat 12 Oct (eve)Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Mon 14 Oct Avis/Gruzdyev/Takahashi

Tues 15 Oct Chang/Bubnov/Cao

Wed 16 Oct Avis/Edur/Oaks

Thurs 17 Oct (mat) Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Thurs 17 Oct (eve) Avis/Bubnov/Cao

Fri 18 Oct Mukhamedov/Gruzdyev/Takahashi

Sat 19 (mat) Chang/Bubnov/Cao

Sat 19 Oct (eve) Mukhamedov/Gruzdyev/Takahashi

Southampton Mayflower

Thurs 14 Nov Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks

Fri 15 Nov (mat) Avis/Gruzdyev/Takahashi

Fri 15 Nov (eve) Chang/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Sat 16 Nov (mat) Pastor/Ramos/TBA

Sat 16 Nov (eve) Mukhamedov/Bubnov/Cao

Manchester Opera House

Thurs 21 Nov Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Fri 22 Nov (mat) Chang/Bubnov/Cao

Fri 22 Nov (eve) Avis/Gruzdyev/Takashashi

Sat 23 Nov (mat) Wikstrom/Pastor/McIlroy

Sat 23 No9v (eve) Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks

London Coliseum

December
Tues 3 Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks
Wed 4 Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova
Thurs 5 (mat) Avis/Edur/Oaks
(eve) Wikstrom/Bubnov/Cao
Fri 6 Avis/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
Sat 7 (mat) Pator/Ramos/TBa
(eve) Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Thurs 12 Avis/Gruzdyev/Takashashi
Fri 13 Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks
Sat 14 (mat) Jones/Pastor/McIlroy
(eve) Mukhamedov/Wikstorm/Klimentova

Mon 16 (mat) Mukhamedov/Ramos/TBA
(eve) Avis/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
Tues 17 (mat) Jones/TBA/TBA
(eve) Chang/Bubnov/Cao
Wed 18 (mat) Wikstorm/PAstor/McIlroy
(eve) Mukhamedov/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
Thurs (mat) Chang/Ramos/TBA
(eve) Avis/Wikstorm/Klimentova
Fri 20 (mat) Jones/TBA/TBA
(eve) Pastor/Edur/Oaks
Sat 21 (mat) Avis/Bubnov/Cao
(eve) Mukhamedov/Wikstrom/Klimentova

Mon 23 (mat) Mukhamedov/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
(eve) Chang/Edur/Oaks
Tues 24 (mat) Avis/Pator/McIlroy
Thurs 26 (mat)Pastor/Ramos/TBA
(eve) Wikstrom/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
Fri 27 (mat) Jones/TBA/TBA
(eve) Mukhamedov/Wikstorm/Klimentova
Sat 28 (mat) Chang/TBA/TBA
(eve) Avis/Bubnov/Cao

Mon 30 (mat) Jones/Ramos/TBA
(eve) Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks
Tues 31 (mat) Avis/Wikstrom/Klimentova
(eve) Jones/Pastor/McIlroy

January

Wed 1 (mat) Wikstorm/TBA/TBA
(eve) Mukhamedov/Ramos/TBA
Thurs 2 (mat) Avis/Wikstrom/Klimentova
(eve) Pastor/Bubnov/Cao
Fri 3 (mat) Wikstrom/TBA/TBA
(eve) Avis/Gruzdyev/Takahashi
Sat 4 (mat) Chang/Pastor/McIlroy
(eve) Mukhamedov/Edur/Oaks

I'm not a ballet buff, so when Mats Skoog, the artistic director of English National Ballet, invited me to come up with a new design for The Nutcracker, I had no preconceptions. He told me that he wanted the production to be led by the design - that was what particularly attracted me. I had seen one or two Nutcrackers before, but Skoog encouraged me to begin with a completely clean slate.

IF THERE’S ONE BALLET everyone knows, it’s The Nutcracker. And if there’s one ballet guaranteed to set the box-office tills ringing it’s The Nutcracker. So when a company takes on a new production of the Christmas perennial it had better have something special to say for itself. In the case of English National Ballet’s new staging, which premieres in Bristol on Thursday, that something special is the designs. Sets and costumes by the political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe will give ENB’s production an extravagant new look. But the rethink doesn’t stop there. Christopher Hampson is providing all new choreography, his biggest project to date.

The Nutcracker is sold as the most child friendly ballet in the repertory, yet many kids find its sporadic story line and dance divertissements a mild bore. English National Ballet earn almost half their annual box-office revenue from this classic, so it is not surprising that their new production is geared to snaring the restless attentions of a junior audience.
Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe has provided the vision for the production and his designs are as confrontationally eccentric as you'd expect. The characters pop out of a giant story book, styled in a mix of Mervyn Peake and Vivienne Westwood. Clara and her friend are cute jail bait in acrylic wigs and bum-skimming miniskirts, green-haired Grandpa with orange kilt and Zimmer frame has a sex pot called Ms V Agra hanging from his arm. Drosselmeyer, the dominant force of act one, is dressed like Gary Glitter on a day out to the magic circle.

WHEN MATZ SKOOG decided that he needed a new Nutcracker for English National Ballet the first person he approached was Gerald Scarfe. Skoog knew that he wanted the production to be design-led, and he knew that with Scarfe on board the designs would grab all the attention. And that’s precisely what they do. It was hard sometimes on Thursday at the Bristol Hippodrome, where The Nutcracker premiered, to find the ballet lurking within the riot of colour and caricature that Scarfe has conceived.

An artificial snowstorm heralded the first Nutcracker of the season. English National Ballet launched its shiny new production - the twelfth in its 52-year existence - in Bristol, before taking it on tour to Liverpool, Southampton and Manchester. It reaches the London Coliseum in time for Christmas, competing with the Royal Ballet's tried-and-tested Victorian version.

Opening nights are notoriously bad representations of what ballet productions will become, so I feel reluctant to judge English National Ballet's expensive new Nutcracker on the strength of its unveiling. Apologies were made from the stage for technical delays, but problems look more deep-seated than that to me.

Sparrows and starlings may be on the decline, but as usual there will be no shortage of Nutcrackers, and the first of the season has just landed. English National Ballet, which holds the British record for half a century of Nutcracking, premiered its latest new-look production at the Bristol Hippodrome, prior to a tour and a Christmas run in London.
It turns out a very gaudy affair. The questionable idea of the ENB’s new director, Matz Skoog,was to commission a “design-led” staging from the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, with the choreography by the talented young Christopher Hampson coming in second place. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker is a fantasy ballet, but surely, however “modernised”, the fantasy, the magic only work when they grow out of something palpably real to begin with.

The horse knew what it was doing. ENB, I feel, does not. The Nutcracker has a simple - verging on dim - narrative. No matter: it also has the most ravishing score, an emotional warmth, a pinch of magic, and a generous dance identity. In what we may optimistically think of as its original state, it can charm audiences of all ages, all tastes, by the hints of poetry and the undeniable astuteness of its action. It may be kitsch, but it is kitsch of genius. Many producers have had their wicked way with it during the past three decades, but something of worth usually survives to remind us of its irresistible qualities.

English National Ballet's version at the Coliseum is design-led without much further dimension. Gerald Scarfe's vibrant, confectionery costumes and nursery sets are great fun (particularly the fridge in which the Snowflakes live).