About Fran Pickering

The Bolshoi Ballet’s London season has ended on a high note with Flames of Paris, Alexei Ratmansky’s reworking of Stalin’s favourite ballet. Knowing the original was a Soviet-era ballet about the French Revolution I thought I was in for a gloomy time as aristocrats fell before the righteous hordes of workers. Nothing of the kind. […]

The Bolshoi Ballet are in London for a three-week season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, hoping to blot out the memory of the recent acid attack on their director with their superlative dancing. They brought the great war-horses with them (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty) but I opted instead for Jewels, being keen to […]

A brand new work by Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor is always something to look forward to, and I booked for Raven Girl at the Royal Opera House well before there was much information about what it would be like. It turned out to be a modern fairytale, the result of a collaboration between […]

Forget the film of the same name which is attracting a lot of attention at the moment – the Gatsby you didn’t want to miss was the Northern Ballet production at Sadler’s Wells. If you did, I’m very sorry, because London was the last stop on their UK tour so you’ve missed your chance for […]

Mayerling is probably the darkest classical ballet around – a sad tale of drugs, madness and suicide that is currently enjoying performances by the Royal Ballet in London.  It’s also one of Kenneth MacMillan’s masterpieces, showing his great talent for expressing emotion through dance, particularly through some quite astounding, and physically challenging, duets in which […]

A temple dancer, a valiant warrior, a jealous princess and a golden idol that comes to life; the Royal Ballet’s production of La Bayadère’s got the lot, and the ravishing vision of the Kingdom of Shades to boot. A load of hokum it may be, but the mixture of strong story and classic set pieces […]

The Mikhailovsky Ballet opened their season at the London Coliseum on Tuesday 26 March with Giselle, starring their golden couple Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev. Could they live up to all the hype? Read on to find out! Those of us who have been lucky enough to see this pair before have perhaps become a […]