Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty - 4 Months and Counting!

This week, I purchased tickets for Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at the Bristol Hippodrome. It's still 4 months away, but I'm really looking forward it! Here's a flavour of the production:

Andrew

Tuesday Titter 16

Whilst I was selecting Sunday's Sunday Sound, You Tube suggested the following video to me. It's a piece of Ballet choreographed by Matthew Bourne of Swan Lake fame. My first thought was to use it for a stand-alone entry but it wasn't long before I realised it would be perfect as a Tuesday Titter (although it is around 9 minutes long in total.)

Anyway, enjoy!

Andrew

Boxing Day Ballet

One of my memories of Christmases past is of my mother and I, once we had a telly, watching the ballet productions that BBC2 screen(ed). Funnily enough, my father would often excuse himself whilst these were on! 

In particular, I remember watching (and mum, a friend and I went to see it live some years later) was Matthew Bourne's innovative production of Swan Lake which features an all-male corps de ballet.

Here are some excerpts performed at the 1998 Royal Variety Performance and introduced by The Two Ronnies:

Apologies if you would have liked (or preferred) to have seen Jim Davidson after the break...

Andrew

What this blog needs is a touch of class...

....but I'll leave that for another time. Instead this post features a ballet classic as you may not have seen it before.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo are an all-male group of classically trained dancers performing parodies of some of the best known ballets. I saw them some years ago and approached the performance with some scepticism; I had seen them perform a piece on television but could the joke sustain a whole show? What I experienced was one of the funniest and most fun nights I've ever had in a theatre.

The finale is a unique, ehm, "interpretation" of Mikhail Fokine's The Dying Swan:

You can visit their website for more information and tour dates. They're touring the UK in March and April - well worth a gander if they're in your vicinity!

Andrew