Last Updated on May 6, 2026

A Welcome Return by the All-Male Ballet Comedy Company

Every time Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo, affectionately known as The Trocks, descend on London – size 11 pointe shoes, hairy armpits, beefy shoulders, terribly wigs and all – we realise how much we’ve missed them.  The all-male comedy ballet troupe from New York has carved a place in the hearts of UK ballet goers with its performances en travesti, offering irrepressible sense of fun, witty observation of the foibles of much loved classics, great comedic timing and remarkable  technique.  They may all be comedians, but boy, these men can dance!  and not for the first time during their opening performance at Sadler’s Wells I found myself thinking, “eat your heart out,… (fill in the name of a famous ballerina or two)”.

The Trocks’ current visit to Sadler’s Wells, after an absence of four years, is short compared with previous residencies at the Peacock (now out of commission for much needed repairs), and is part of an extensive UK and Ireland tour, marking the company’s 50th anniversary.

They bring a mixed bill with some of their greatest hits, none greater perhaps than  Dying Swan, performed by the incomparable Olga Supphozova,  company veteran Robert Carter.  Danced to the plaintive strains of Saint-Saëns cello music, this is not the usual ethereal swan gracefully bourreeing towards its end, but rather a cantankerous, arthritic old bird meeting its end with little grace, while moulting profusely. 

What makes this short piece so fascinating is that Carter is an extraordinary dancer, his undulating arms as fluid as wings, so that  for a moment he evokes the spirit of the Pavlova original before the comedy takes over.  It’s finely judged, very clever and very amusing.  And even the curtain call has its own extended choreography…

Carter appears with his male monicker Yuri Smirnov (all 14 Trocks have both male and female stage names) as the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart, in Act II of Swan Lake, which opens the programme.

Here the budding romance between a strapping, but exceedingly dim Prince Siegfried, Aref Legupski (Andrea Fabbri) and the wilful Swan Queen, Odette, danced by Colette Adae (Jake Speakman) is constantly interrupted by a hyperactive Benno, Jaques d’Aniels (Antonio Lopez) intent on hunting a bird or two.  

The yearning Romantic gestures and profuse mime of Petipa’s choreography lend themselves to subtle, and not so subtle distortion for comic effect, and you sit there holding your breath in anticipation of what they will subvert next, even while performing the choreography with tremendous aplomb.  Particularly amusing is the Four Cygnets sequence, where four awfully mismatched dancers attempt miracles of coordination with varying degrees of success.

The famous Le Corsaire pas de deux, though played for laughs, is very close to the virtuoso original, with Mikhail Mudkin (Raydel Caceres) and Maya Thickenthighya (Peter Gwiazda) acquitting themselves well of the demanding choreography.

The one new piece, Metal Garden, didn’t quite work, even if The Trocks were able to mine the comical potential of a jazzy contemporary piece, created by the idiosyncratic Irish choreographer Sean Curran as a whimsical, but not necessarily comical, work.   

The finale, though, was all you could hope for and more! A suite from Paquita, it offered the dancers the opportunity to really show their mettle and to the last man/ballerina they rose to the occasion.

The ensemble were beautifully drilled and the gags and pratfalls were underplayed, but all the more effective for it.  One dancer sported large glasses, but not much was made of it. She just did.  As the leading ballerina, the petite Varvara Laptopova (Takaomi Yoshino) delivered herself of the most thrilling set of 32 fouettés I have ever seen – and I mean that! The sheer speed, definition and assuredness of it was simply mind-blowing, and it was in keeping with her entire barn-storming performance.  As her Cavalier, Mikhail Mudkin (fresh from his turn in Le Corsaire) could only humbly obey her commands.

In short, The Trocks served up their usual fare with the customary verve and sense of fun.  Their show was a much-needed antidote to the prevailing mood of our times.

Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo is at Sadler’s Wells 5 & 6 May

Touring until 24 June. All info and tickets here

Sadler’s Wells Angel
Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4TN

Check out our London Dance Previews – January to July 2026

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A Visceral First Revival of Deborah Warner’s Peter Grimes

It’s always unnerving seeing a revival of a production you have loved. Will the singers be on form? Will that initial impact be reinforced or fade away to a lesser experience? Will new cast members and the conductor bring a fresh energy to the production or create a less focused experience? I needn’t have been concerned. This show, the first revival of Deborah Warner’s Peter Grimes, with new Music Director Jakub Hrůša now firmly at the helm, delivers on all fronts, with the conductor unleashing the storm-like power of Britten’s score and the combined vocal and instrumental forces at his disposal to stunning effect.

Peter Grimes, with a libretto by Montagu Slater, was first performed in 1945 at Sadler’s Wells. Conducted by Reginald Goodall, it was Britten’s first opera and his first major international success. In three acts, the work is based on George Crabbe’s narrative poem ‘Peter Grimes’, taken from his book of 1810 ‘The Borough’. The Borough is the name of a fictional village where the opera’s action takes place and clearly references Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, where both Crabbe, Britten and his lover, the great tenor Peter Pears, who debuted the part, lived.

The central theme of Peter Grimes deals with the persecution of an individual by a larger group. Grimes has been accused of causing the death of his young apprentice at sea through his violent and neglectful behaviour. He is a tragic anti-hero brought down by his stubborn pride and belief that if he can become rich, the people of the Borough will give him the respect he craves. Benjamin Britten would have understood this dynamic all too keenly as both a gay man and a pacifist, and the character of Peter Grimes fits into the ‘tortured male’ hero trope that Britten features in many of his works.

I first saw Peter Grimes in the 1991 English National Opera production with Philip Langridge playing the title role. If Langridge was the heir to Peter Pears, then he has passed the torch to Allan Clayton, the British tenor who plays the title role, coaching him in the part in what has now become an era-defining interpretation of the role.

Deborah Warner’s approach is subtle, allowing the powerful dynamics between the crowd, the sea, the lead characters and of course the music to take the foreground. The singers are dressed in jeans, t-shirts, winter sweaters and oiled jackets. Michael Levine’s simple but effective set design uses the width of the ROH stage to great effect with a neutral white clapboard backdrop morphing into a seascape, seawall, seafront and pub interior. Warner has taken influence from the run-down seaside towns of England’s south coast, in particular Jaywick Sands in Essex. We see echoes of right-wing nationalism with a Union Jack, hard tattooed bodies, bovver boots and skinhead crops. This is not the Suffolk coast as a bouji weekend bolthole. It’s a much more brutal space with a populace locked into a subsistence-level economic interdependence, held together by the restraining power of the Church and the constant threat of being ostracised.

This production of Peter Grimes features a stellar cast with fabulous support from established stars returning from its first London outing, including Bryn Terfel, Maria Bengtsson and former Jette Parker Young Artist Jacques Imbrailo. But it is Allan Clayton’s performance as Peter Grimes that is worth the price of admission on its own. He brings a terrifying sense of dramatic realism to the part, embodying the desperation and damaged emotional landscape of the character that mirrors the destructive power of the sea. It’s a reading of the part rooted in contemporary conceptions of mental illness, such as PTSD, and in Grimes’ dreams and fantasies, he and we see the dead apprentice floating across the stage as a recurring visual reminder of the character’s inevitable fate.

Clayton is masculine and passionate with a shambling strength and physicality that simultaneously conveys threat and vulnerability. His voice has a luminous intensity combined with a flawless technique that shines in the exposed high notes. The articulation is less plummy than that of Pears, even as when singing ‘Now the Great Bear and Pleiades’, surely one of the most intensely ‘religious’ passages of secular music ever written. Framed in a triangle of white light, the character is reaching out to a spiritual destiny far beyond the confines of The Borough. Clayton has established himself as the leading Grimes on the international circuit, and his performance in this revival embodies that self-confidence; he is both utterly lost and supremely self-confident in the role.

Although he sings ‘I’m native rooted here’, Grimes is the eternal outsider, pitting himself against the dual challenges of the sea and the people. The Royal Opera Chorus represent Grimes’ nemesis as the townsfolk of The Borough and delivers some spine-chillingly thrilling choral work. They shift from polyphonic shanty shouts to unison accusations, sometimes moving as one like a shoal of fish preoccupied with vengeance. It was good to see their director, William Spaulding, taking a deserved bow at the curtain call.

Similarly brilliant were the orchestra. Making a shift from the precision and clarity of Mark Elder, who conducted the original production, to Jakub Hrůša’s more elemental reading, the band was complicit in creating a thrilling sonic barrage that blew the audience away. The opera’s acts are linked by a series of orchestral Interludes which exist in a concert version as the Four Sea Interludes. With high strings and wind syncopations, low brass clusters, bleak and threatening major minor dissonance, polytonal arpeggios, semitonal squeals and visceral squalls of sound, has any composer written more thrillingly of the sea?

Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson plays Ellen Orford, Grimes’ romantic foil, eaten up by her internalised passion. She takes us on a journey from hope to despair as she tries to soothe Peter’s desperation. A couple of years on, Bengtsson has shed some of her cool Scandi-noir detective look and is more convincing as an impoverished East Anglian schoolteacher. Despite Bengtsson’s naturally lyrical approach, there is now more intensity when she sings the pivotal aria ‘Let her among you without fault cast the first stone’ and the famous ‘Embroidery’ aria, in which she mourns the loss of Grimes’ second apprentice is laced through threads of a deeper emotional understanding of the role.

In a commanding performance as the retired Captain Balstrode, the one male character to show any sympathy for the doomed protagonist, Bryn Terfel’s bass-baritone voice has the power, presence, and acting chops to serve as both advocate for Grimes and the person who seals his fate. Terfel’s character is a brutal realist, accepting of the status quo with all its inequities and abuse, and his reading of the role is both masterful and nuanced.

Bass Clive Bayley creates a characterful Swallow, the town’s seedy mayor and presiding magistrate, in a performance that strikes a balance between the needs of justice and the unity of the town.
Baritone Jacques Imbrailo, who took the part of Billy Budd in Warner’s production, takes playful advantage of the role of town apothecary Ned Keene, delivered as a hyper, track-suited wide boy taking advantage of great British mezzo-soprano Christine Rice’s Mrs Sedley, a laudanum-addicted refugee from the Thursday Night Murder Club and town snooper.

Fellow mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers plays the publican Auntie with stoic charm, setting out her stall as the community’s provider of comfort and shelter in the sublime quartet ‘From the gutter’, sung with her pleasingly trashy nieces (Jennifer France and Spanish soprano Natalia Labourdette in denim miniskirts) and Ellen, as all four women articulate their position in this brutal patriarchy.

Special mention should go to tenor John Graham-Hall, who plays the fanatical Methodist Bob Boles with a wonderful sense of comic desperation, and I particularly enjoyed the clarion tone of tenor James Gilchrist’s Rev. Horace Adams, the town’s pastor.

This is a Peter Grimes for our times, centred on a flawed, self-destructive hero, undone by the power of the collective coalescing with the irresistible power of the sea. This production has surely reached its peak in this season and, with the Royal Opera House at the top of its game, is worth every penny of the taxpayers’ subsidy. You should go.

Peter Grimes

5–28 May 2026

Royal Opera House, Bow Street, London, WC2E 9DD

Check out the London Opera Previews Here

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Last Updated on May 5, 2026

Mouth-watering meats from the Far East (Canary Wharf)

Mama Li, which promises succulent Cantonese roasted meats in cosy surroundings, has opened its third location in Canary Wharf. Founded by a mother-daughter team who were frustrated with a lack of authentic ‘Siu Mei’ (roast meat) in London. Their menu combines these meats, duck, pork, beef and vegan chicken, with rice, noodles and veg for a hearty dinner. All this inside what feels like a modernised version of those busy old Hong Kong cafés, buzzy and informal, but this time in expertly curated surroundings, recreating the silhouette of the original but with a Canary Wharf twist. And just around the corner from the Hunger Games play, a canny choice for a pre-show dinner.

We started with drinks, although they had sold out of their tea-based cocktails. A lychee garden mocktail was what we had instead. This was refreshing, tannic, and not a million miles away from the sorts of soft drinks popular in China. A favourite beverage of mine, it turns out, is mostly recommended for those with digestive issues, so while I wholeheartedly recommend sour plum tea, just be prepared for some sympathetic looks from the cashier when you check out. This drink had a similar medicinal quality, tempered by the lychee’s freshness.

One of our mains was a crispy roast pork noodle soup. Super flavourful and with nice and bouncy noodles, a quality which is called ‘QQ’. This is partially achieved through the use of basic water in the dough mix, as well as through gluten development during kneading in wheat noodles. The real star of the show, however, is of course the roast pork, which has a real depth of flavour and is a reason to visit in itself.

We also had shumai, a real dim sum classic and the test for quality in dim sum restaurants like Mama Li. A minced meat mix stuffed into wonton wrappers, so the meat peeks from the top. These fit the bill nicely and were properly tender and light.

Another main was the beef brisket with rice. This was meaty and soft with a flavourful liquor and a clear standout of the meal. Paired with a plump dome of white rice and pak choi, the beef was so full of lip-smacking yumminess that it seeped pleasingly into the rest of the dish.

We enjoyed the perfectly crisp and grease-free duck spring rolls. To visit a restaurant like Mama Li without trying the duck would be sacrilege, and it was just as you’d like it, melt in your mouth and, as a filling, made up of proper morsels and not a chewy mush that can sometimes fill spring rolls.

For dessert at Mama Li, we had deep-fried custard buns, another dim sum favourite with a twist: instead of delicate, steamed buns, these were burnished to a glistening gold, earth-shatteringly crisp, and filled with a steaming custard magma.

Our other dessert, exclusive to the new location, was a Bolo Bai with butter. This mildly sweet pineapple bread, named for its crackly crust rather than its flavour, was chewy and creamy, not unlike a brioche. However, inside we discover a large slab of salted butter. To say this was a surprise would be an understatement. However, in researching this piece, it is clear that this is the traditional filling, which creates extreme dissonance in the dish. Who are we to find fault in such thing, of course, when many of our fellow diners that night were clearly keen to enjoy the taste of home that this dish represents.

Overall, this casual and modern joint, with menus available via a QR code for ordering from your phone, is clearly filling a niche in dining in Canary Wharf, where many casual places close after commuters head home. Mama Li is also deft in bringing Hong Kong’s café scene to Canary Wharf without losing any of its charm or authenticity.

3 West Lane, Canary Wharf Estate, E22 3AA

020 3319 9656

Book here

Check out our New Restaurants in London – Tried and Tested in 2025

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Last Updated on May 6, 2026

Scottish Hospitality and Charm at the Pierhouse, A small but perfectly formed Boutique Hotel

I’m kicking off a big Scottish adventure in 2026, starting with a family visit and a trip to Mull, home of Clan Maclean, before eventually making the move to Edinburgh later this year. Since Oban is the main jumping-off point for Mull and just down the road (by Scottish standards!) from Port Appin, stopping at the Pierhouse Hotel was an easy decision.

The Pierhouse Hotel, a compact twelve-bedroom affair, sits just in front of the foot ferry to Lismore, a tiny Hebridean island just 10 miles long that runs between Mull and the west coast. The hotel dates back to the 19th century and was built as the residence and office for the Port Appin pier master. At the time, Port Appin was a thriving hub for steamboat traffic along Loch Linnhe, carrying both passengers and cargo. When the steamboat trade declined, the building became a private home and later became a hotel. After it was bought in 2019 by the well-known hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray, it became part of the newly formed The Wee Hotel Company (alongside The Three Chimneys). The perfect place to experience genuine Scottish hospitality and enjoy some wonderful Scottish seafood.

In fact, the warmth for me started before I ever reached Port Appin. Travelling without a car, I took the train from Glasgow to Oban, where I was met by the Port Appin local taxi service. It’s around £50 for the half-hour journey, and Jimmy had a wealth of local information, so it almost felt like a private tour.

The Pierhouse Hotel was exactly what I’d imagined; closer to a restaurant with rooms, with the kind of hospitality that makes you feel as if you’ve arrived to stay with an old friend. There’s a cosy bar looking out over Loch Linnhe and two snugs where you can tuck yourself away with a book. The restaurant spans two rooms: the larger has fabulous windows overlooking the loch, while the smaller, on the other side of the bar, is dog-friendly (as is the rest of the hotel).

A tour of the bedrooms at The Pierhouse Hotel was a relatively quick affair, although there are four options to choose from. There are two superior rooms, each sea-facing and with a comfy seating area. Mine had a large walk-in shower, while the other had a full-sized bathtub. Something like a mini apartment, mine also had its own front door onto the grass and terrace.

Seaview standard rooms are cosy and compact but still have that amazing view, while cliff-facing rooms look out onto a mossy, sloping garden area for a more private experience. The rooms are well equipped with Roberts radios, large TVs, tea and coffee facilities, and a minibar. The bathrooms have rather luxurious Scottish toiletries (brand to add), and overall, it has a real home-from-home feel, with soft cream upholstery on the chairs and contrasting cushions and throws.

It’s the restaurant, though, which really sets The Pierhouse Hotel apart. Head Chef Michael Leathley has been in place for over six years now. Having grown up in the North of England, it was a period working in Glasgow with the current General Manager of the Pierhouse, my namesake, Fiona McLean, that resulted in Michael (and a number of other team members at the Pierhouse) moving to Port Appin. His son had just been born, and the magical atmosphere at Port Appin, a village by the sea with a proper sense of community, seemed just right at the time.

What he found was a network of local suppliers offering exceptional produce – icecream made by Jane Isaacson who has a small fold of highland cows, Pacific oysters from Judith Vajk’s Caledonian Oyster Company and Langoustine from Eoghan Black, who uses sustainable creel bait shellfish from his base on Lismore island to supply the Pierhouse Hotel. Lobsters too are creel caught, though Michael, almost regretfully told me that he had to source them from across the West Coast to avoid overfishing Loch Linnhe. Even the salt is local – produced using a graduation thorn tower – blackthorne salt from near Ayr. It’s all about terroir. It’s also about community so Pierhouse Hotel has a stall at the Appin show and has recently expanded with a cafe and storehouse run by Michael’s wife, The Linnhe, set high in the hills on the route from Port Appin to Ballachulish.

So, what else should I start dinner with than Pacific oysters and champagne? The freshest plump oysters served with a grilled lemon and a classic mignonette. There are times when I really wish I had a car; knowing that Judith Vajk has a roadside kiosk and honesty box for spontaneous purchases of oysters was one such moment.

Next, a slightly retro scallop dish, served with a rich lobster bisque, a sweet, gently spiced sauce laced with onions and topped with crisp puff pastry.

Lobster, Chef Michael’s suggestion, was spot on, carefully grilled and served with a buttery dressing. I may just have over-ordered side dishes, but I have no regrets, though I couldn’t finish the incredibly moreish house-smoked ratte potatoes served with butter and parsley.

The little gem and anchovy salad was just a little overwhelmed by a heavy dressing but otherwise delicious.

To finish, of course, I had to order some of that ice cream. Foraged lightly floral meadowsweet ice cream and refreshing seabuckthorn sorbet came with a charming service of an upturned ice cream cone and a scattering of honeycomb crunch.

Coffee and a square of tablet to round things off – simple, but elevated dining with more than just a sprinkling of Scottishness.

The Pierhouse Hotel has the kind of peaceful setting where I sleep like a baby. The next morning, back in the Lismore restaurant looking out across the loch, I enjoyed a full Scottish complete with haggis and black pudding. It’s a dangerous kind of place for any food lover, but thankfully, there are things to do besides eating.

I walked up the hill behind the hotel for ten minutes or so after dinner. If you wanted a little more exercise, it’s easy to continue on the route I took for a forty-minute or so stroll. And, if you were staying for a bit longer, you could easily spend a day on Lismore – it’s just 10 minutes across the water by the foot ferry.

I’m most intrigued by the Pierhouse Hotel’s collaboration with Lucy Cooke, who is based nearby in Oban and who runs The Wild Cooke. There are a series of ‘Forage and Feast’ dates where you can spend the morning with Lucy foraging before returning to the hotel for a foraged buffet prepared by Michael.

For more to do, the hotel runs regular yoga classes on Sundays, and Blair Mackintosh, the yoga tutor, also offers private classes.

The Pierhouse, Port Appin, Appin PA38 4DE

Phone: 01631 730302

Looking for more culinary breaks? Check out our feature on Gothenburg for Food Lovers

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Last Updated on May 5, 2026

Sadler’s Wells Annual Hip Hop Take Over

On show days, the mezzanine area of Sadler’s Wells normally hosts exclusive receptions for company and theatre patrons and guests; but during Breakin’ Convention, it devolves to the people (ticket holders, obviously) with DJs spinning their stuff at top volume, the occasional bout of beatboxing and plenty of spontaneous dancing.

Grown ups have a lot to do to compete with the youngsters, boys and girls, who take this opportunity to show their breakin’ ability; and some, you feel sure, will be seen on stage at Sadler’s Wells before too long, as part of one crew or another.

Over three days, Breakin’ Convention covers many of the aspects of the hip hop sub-culture, with a variety of workshops and graffiti tagging, led by such luminaries as Zaki Dee, Snatch and .Epod. 

However, the main business of Breakin’ Convention, now in its 23rd year, as host and artistic director Jonzi D, was proud to announce, happens on the main stage at Sadler’s Wells, where national and international hip hop crews strut their stuff.   The front rows of the stalls are removed to form a mosh pit, with soon fills up – when I attended, on Saturday evening (Day Two), the rest of the house seemed pretty well sold out.

As a regular attender, I will admit I found most of the seven numbers on offer this year disappointing, but the two which closed each half of the performance really lifted the evening: the Dutch multi-national  ILL-Abilities and the American Rock Force Crew.

ILL-Abilities is a truly extraordinary crew, made up of eight dancers with a variety of disabilities – the name comes from the standard in hip hop culture of using a negative term to refer to something positive.  Two dancers from ILL-Abilites offered Breakin’ Convention 2026 a barn-storming, hard to believe performance.  One dancer was missing a leg, the other had a prosthetic leg and was missing part of an arm.  Did any of that affect their energetic, acrobatic, extremely skilled  breakin’? Emphatically not.  

They leapt in the air, swivelled on the ground, balanced on one arm with the rest of the body parallel to the ground, dancing together and solo, and in one case using the crutches as a normal accessory to dancing.  It was simply breathtaking and  I was startled to realise that the appreciative yelping at the end of their performance had come from me.

ILL-Abilities brought the show some of the positive spirit, which Jonzi D wants Breakin’ Convention to represent and spread, and so did Rock Force Crew, which was founded in 1983 in California, primarily as a group of Filipino Americans, but has since then enlarged its ranks and is now 10-strong.   Rock Force Crew brought the audience at Sadler’s Wells exactly what they’d been waiting for: a standard, vibrant hip hop session, including the thrilling moves we’ve all come to expect.  

 In between bouts of dancing, a brief voice over introduced the dancers to come, either individually or in groups, depending on where in the USA they came from. Rock Force Crew, incidentally the last USA crew to win the world title, and winners also of a raft of awards too numerous to mention, sent us home in buoyant mood.

I understand that hip hop must evolve and has been doing so over the past few decades to remain fresh and relevant to each new generation.  However, some of the numbers in this year’s Breakin’ Convention hardly fit the general  brief: AS Compagnie from France, consisted two men performing a very streamlined version of locking, where they stood in a cone of line for what seemed like an eternity, performing very small coordinated gestures with arms and hands.  It was interesting until it wasn’t, and it went on long after that.  Sadly, there were some boos amid the lukewarm applause.

Italy’s Compagnie Bellanda was physical theatre rather than hip hop, which a man and a woman writhing on the ground, their intermittent dialogue projected onto the black cloth.

Let It Happen, three young women from the Netherlands, opened the evening with a show that was proficient, but tame; Gary Clarke Company, from the UK, appeared to have settled for the simplest format – on past performance, we were entitled to expect more.

And there was also a brief on-stage promo for the brand new Breakin’ Convention Academy, sited at Sadler’s Wells East, which is just coming to the end of its first year.

Breakin’ Convention is at Sadler’s Wells 1 – 3 May

Sadler’s Wells Angel
Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4TN

Check out our London Dance Previews – January to July 2026

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Last Updated on May 2, 2026

Rambert + Juilliard + Studio Wayne McGregor

First things first: the students from Rambert School, London, and Juilliard, New York, who came together under the auspices of choreographer du jour Wayne McGregor, are nothing short of phenomenal: they filled the stage at Sadler’s Wells East with such talent, technical proficiency, discipline and unbridled enthusiasm they made me love them, no matter what.

That said, let’s take a step back and define our terms: Rambert School is the UK’s premier contemporary dance teaching institution; Juilliand is the pre-eminent conservatoire for performing arts in the USA; Wayne McGregor is The Royal Ballet’s choreographer in residence, as well as running his own company, Studio Wayne McGregor, and having irons in all manner of other fires, national and international, including as curator of the dance complement of the Venice Biennale.

And MAM and AISOMA are AI machines, described as “radical choreographic thinking tools”, developed by McGregor as part of his fascination with cutting-edge science and technology, and his exploration of the possible input of Artificial Intelligence into dance making.  More on that in a moment, as I must…

In an unprecedented collaboration, students from Rambert School and Juillard have spent the past year working with Studio Wayne McGregor to create the one-off performance that’s just reached London.

Each school worked independently with artists from Studio Wayne McGregor to create work which they showed in their respective contexts: Juillard in December 2025, Rambert in March this year.  For the final phase of the collaboration, the two schools came together, first in New York, under the direction of McGregor’s artistic team, and finally in London, led by the choreographer himself.

The result, Augmented, is a one hour high-energy, technically demanding show that contains most of what we’ve come to expect from McGregor – hyperextensions, body contortions, flailing arms, and masses of bodies shooting across the stage at high speed, as well as as some slower, more meditative moments, the whole thing stunningly lit by Theresa Baumgartner (whose dazzling lighting design animated McGregor’s 2025 Deepstaria), and set in motion by DJ Yraki, operating his turntable desk live on stage.

The curtain went up to reveal a duskily lit, unadorned stage, where a huddle of slowly swaying dancers, reminiscent perhaps of a shoal of fish or a concentration of jellyfish, shape-shifted almost imperceptibly. From the DJ desk situated stage left, there came rhythmic thumping alternating with an electronic buzz.  It was not until the second half of the hour that the DJ offered anything resembling music; before that, we had intermittent noises, some suggesting gasping and gargling, some unidentifiable.

Gradually, more dancers rushed in from the wings, their individually styled practice clothes leached of colour.   They engaged in a maelstrom of genderless movement: men and women required to perform the same steps and extensions, men partnering men, women partnering women, and, interestingly, women required to lift men, as well as each other.

There were moments of ensemble work, and the young dancers’ coordination was impressive, but mostly the stage was a blur of different groupings or individuals doing their own thing with unflagging energy.  They really were a pleasure to watch, their uniformity such that it was impossible to tell the two schools apart. Their choreography, though, I found less interesting.

The dancers worked not from a template, but from tasks set by their respective artistic teams; McGregor himself came in for the final stage, to assemble and, we’re told, “curate” the whole thing.

What is not clear in the information we’ve been given is the role of the AI machines in all this.  We had a demonstration of AISOMA, which McGregor developed with Google Arts and Culture, at his Somerset House exhibition last autumn – the machine has been fed all of McGregor’s back catalogue so that it can learn his language and produce matching choreography.

How much did it contribute to this performance?  We simply don’t know.  I’d hope most of it was human-made, but like so much McGregor work, Augmented was so devoid of emotion and humanity that it could have been the work of a machine. It put me in mind of Macbeth and his “tale… of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

No matter.  Kudos to the young dancers of Augmented and their schools, who offered performances of the highest calibre.

Augmented is a Sadler’s Wells East 1 & 2 May

Sadler’s Wells East
Stratford Walk
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
London E20 2AR

Check out our London Dance Previews – January to July 2026

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Last Updated on May 1, 2026

The All-Male Troupe Resumes its Stage Journey

In the event you haven’t heard of BalletBoyz (unlikely, I know, but just to be on the safe side), I’ll let one of the company founders, Michael Nunn, do the introductions:

“A high quality dance company that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but takes the art seriously. And I think we try and package our performances so that there’s something for everybody, that will make you laugh, make you think, and will create some sort of emotional response. Primarily, it’s about entertaining people.  We’re not there to teach them a lesson or give them any medicine, maybe just keep edging things forward. 

“I’ve always thought if we have a casual, fun approach to what we do, we can sell more difficult work, because we’re taking people on that journey.”

BalletBoyz’s own journey started a quarter of a century ago, though it feels like only yesterday that two former Royal Ballet dancers, Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, said goodbye to Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and the like, and set off on a radical change of course. Pointless, their very first show at London’s Roundhouse in 2001, was a clear statement of intent, but it was more than that, too.

Pointless by name – a playful reference to the pointe shoes we associate with ballet –  but certainly not by nature: Nunn and Trevitt brought their impeccable Royal Ballet training and preternatural mutual connection to bear on the unique movement language of Russell Maliphant’s Critical Mass, with its grounded push and pull see-saw, fluid transfers of weight, bodies alternately cooperating and competing.  They did it in such perfect synchrony, that they left me breathless. 

There clearly was a point to it:  it was something genuinely new and thrilling, which appeared to open endless possibilities for dance in the 21st century.

BalletBoyz 25 Years Later

The past 25 years have more than fulfilled the initial promise, not only with regular new and enticing live dance performances by carefully chosen cohorts of 10 to 15 male dancers, but also with an increasingly prominent sideline in film-making, which offers different insights into dance itself.

So, a birthday bash is definitely in order.  It’ll take the shape of a wide-ranging UK tour, starting at Sadler’s Wells in mid-May. To find out more, I’ve been speaking to Michael Nunn and William Trevitt at their Kingston-upon-Thames base.  

It’s taken a while for BalletBoyz to return from the ravages of Covid and its attendant lockdowns; the company went a little off-piste three years ago with England on Fire, an ambitious,  large-scale but short-lived collaborative project, which had an uncharacteristically lukewarm reception. Still Pointless, though, sounds like vintage BalletBoyz. 

The programme includes, obviously, Critical Mass, which Nunn and Trevitt will themselves dance – and to say I’m really looking forward to seeing them perform again is a massive understatement.  Then, as Nunn explains,

“The rest of the show has been completely commissioned by us – music and movement – and it’s really just tied into significant moments for the company.”

Still Pointless – The Repertoire

As well as Critical Mass, the programme includes extracts from seven BalletBoyz epoch-making pieces by choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon, Javier de Frutos, Maxine Doyle and Liam Scarlett, and musical scores by Max Richter, Keaton Henson and Cassie Kinoshi. 

There is also, William Trevitt stresses, a brand new piece:

“The thing that we’ve always been focused on is commissioning new collaborations, something original, and so we had to have a new commission. We’ve been working with Seirian [Griffiths], who’s the choreographer of the new work. He came straight from school to work with us [after Covid],  and he’s been developing his choreographic career alongside his dance.  We just thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to showcase his work on an international stage like Sadler’s Wells.”

Then what turned out to be a very silly question: did they give Seirian Griffits free hand to create his new commission?  A mischievous smile crossed Trevitt’s face:

“We never give free hands – It might feel like we do” (both burst out laughing), “but there’s always some conditions. 

“I mean, part of it was the duration: we wanted it to be something that we would be able to develop into a bigger work later.  And we asked him to include eight of the dancers, so, not a solo.”

One of the remarkable things about all BalletBoyz cohorts over the years has been the way in which the dancers’ mutual understanding mirrors that of Nunn and Trevitt, something which is not always apparent in many companies, even long-standing ones; so it is with the current 10-strong company, which includes seasoned BalletBoyz dancers and four newcomers.  They’ve really gelled as a company, says William Trevitt:

“Post-COVID, there’s a really strong network, and they’ve all worked with each other, because jobs are smaller and shorter; so, dancers like the ones we’re working with, they all know each other. They’ve all worked together on something at some point.”

Nunn and Trevitt – Film Makers

Like previous BalletBoyz shows, Sill Pointless includes film.  Michael Nunn explains the thinking behind its inclusion.

“Because it’s a retrospective and we’ve basically documented our entire lives, between the [live] pieces you’ll learn a bit more about the company, why we’re doing what we do, who the people are.  And then, also, we have a section from Young Men, the war movie we made [in 2016], which incorporates live dance, which we tried as a hybrid in Wilton’s Music Hall and in New York.

“And I think it always helps, especially with regional venues that don’t know you, just to explain a bit more about what you’re seeing, what to expect.”

Dancers and company directors, Nunn and Trevitt are also seasoned film-makers, respectively director and cinematographer.  Film, they feel, can bring something extra to dance – tailor-made film, they mean, not just relays of live performances. As Michael Nunn puts it:

“We were always interested in being inside narrative productions.”

The aim, in William Trevitt’s words, is, “to make it feel like it feels if you’re a member of the cast. You know, to see the quality of the performances first-hand.”

At the time of writing, Nunn and Trevitt are putting the final touches to a dance movie planned to hit cinemas in September, part of their “moving pictures programme’, a new platform for dance on the big screen to be shown nationwide.

And they are also working on a big-scale stage production, a 70-minute piece with a live orchestra, projected to come to Sadler’s Wells in the Autumn. BalletBoyz are back with a vengeance – watch this space!

Still Pointless: BalletBoyz at 25 is at Sadler’s Wells 12 – 16 May

Touring until 11 July – full details and tickets here

Sadler’s Wells
Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4TN

Check out our London Dance Previews – January to July 2026

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The Play’s The Thing

The Theatre Royal Bath is one of the country’s great theatrical producing houses and has a mutually beneficial informal relationship with its namesake theatre in the West End’s Haymarket, placing many of its productions there. Last year, Ralph Fiennes had his own season in Bath, which featured the sell-out premiere of the new David Hare play, Grace Pervades. The play opened in London last night refreshed with a few tweaks to the script.

Grace Pervades stars Fiennes as the leading Victorian actor-manager, Henry Irving, and Miranda Raison as his and the nation’s leading lady, Ellen Terry. It sketches out a potted history of their careers and their personal relationship. The piece also features the stories of Ellen’s two children, Edith Craig and Edward Gordon Craig, both of whom made important, if very different, contributions to developments in British theatre.

Hare’s play, Grace Pervades, is an ambitious elegy to that golden tradition of British actors that stretched from Irving to Gielgud, Richardson and Olivier. The script is elegant and witty, a love song to an age that has been jettisoned from contemporary cultural discourse, and that probably means little to younger audiences. The critic sitting next to me, probably in their 20s, muttered something about the language seeming stilted and that they didn’t connect with the play. What I heard was poetic, beautifully delivered and full of humanity and emotion. Whilst the script celebrates the past, being interpolated with many scenes from Shakespeare, through the plot mechanism of the younger characters, it also delivers a historical lesson on how modernist writers such as Ibsen, Strindberg and George Bernard Shaw renewed theatre in the early 20th century.

The role of Henry Irving is tailor-made for Fiennes: a haunted and driven autocrat who struggles with human contact and is consumed by his passion. It could just as well be a description of his role as dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread. Fiennes, in a series of fabulous wigs, is a dead-ringer for Irving, but there’s also a hint of Peter Cushing in his characterisation as he inhabits the stage like a splendid Gothic bird of prey. Irving’s acting style would be seen now as hammy and over the top, and Fiennes wisely tones down the great actor’s excesses. However, he delivers a prize-worthy performance that is driven, autocratic and ultimately very lonely and emotionally disconnected.

Miranda Raison as Ellen Terry is the perfect foil for Irving’s excesses. She brings a sense of humanity to the stage and is the only person who can reach into the great leading man’s solitary eyrie. Raison is the calm at the centre of the storm’s eye, holding Irving, the theatre company and her children together, whilst sacrificing her character’s own ambition at the altar of Irving’s ego.

Gollum’s girl (sorry), Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, reprises her role from Bath as Edith Craig, Terry’s daughter. Craig’s importance in the development of British political theatre is underplayed in the script, but her place at the centre of a jolly lesbian menage à trois at her mother’s Kent home is confidently played and raises a smile whilst giving an insight into the growth of radical feminist politics.
Jordan Metcalfe is deliciously annoying as Terry’s waspish and brittle ‘genius’ son Edward Gordon Craig. I had always thought the Gordon Craig theatre in Stevenage was probably named after some worthy civic benefactor rather than the radical theatrical theorist and influence on Peter Brook. Presented as both a figure of fun and a visionary, there is a terrific scene where ‘Teddy’ is trying to direct a production of Hamlet at the Moscow Arts Theatre under the watchful eye of Stanislavsky. Struggling to balance his idealism and repulsion at the fixity of the theatrical production process, he opines, “In an ideal world, we wouldn’t even open.”

Jeremy Herrin’s production is steeped in the lore and language of the theatre and makes the most of the Shakespearean monologues that pepper the piece. The actors have space to breathe on stage and to fully realise their characterisations. For much of Grace Pervades, we are onstage or backstage with the filmic jumpcuts zigzagging between decades and locations. Designer Bob Crowley handles these transitions seamlessly, taking us from Kensington to Hamburg through Moscow without breaking sweat.

With his 2025 Bath season, Fiennes was dipping his toes into Irving’s shoes, making Grace Pervades a play about an actor-manager by an actor-manager, and the fine ensemble is given a chance to shine. Saskia Strallen makes for a seductive and expressive Isadora Duncan, realistic about the prospects for her relationship with the promiscuous Teddy. Maggie Service is delightful as the deluded Christabel, her heart broken after a one-night sympathy fling with Vita Sackville-West and Kathryn Wilder as “Tony” Atwood effectively brokers the peace between Edith and Christabel

Cultural renewal is the privilege of the young, but The Theatre Royal Bath is doing all of us a service by sustaining our theatrical traditions and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the service of modish, funding-driven programming. By continuing to stage writers such as Terence Rattigan and by framing British theatrical history in Hare’s play, Grace Pervades, they are providing a sense of cultural continuity which should inform and not undermine the present. But maybe more importantly than any debates, go and see this show. It’s a terrific piece of theatre about the centrality of the art form to our society, and it’s a lot of fun.

Grace Pervades

24 April to 11 July 2026

Theatre Royal Haymarket, Haymarket, London SW1Y 4HT

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Last Updated on May 2, 2026

Legacy Classics and New Voices at Cadogan Hall

There were some true gems alongside more run-of-the-mill material in the 11th edition of Ballet Nights, entitled Convergence, which took place at Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall on Wednesday.  As per its usual format, each half of the programme started with a music piece, followed by a total of nine dances, which ranged from the pure classicism of Balanchine’s Diamonds to French street dance and a variety of other things in between.

Among those other things was what for me was the highlight of the evening, something so breathtakingly beautiful and accomplished that for a moment it proved hard to comprehend.  It was choreographed by the young English National Ballet dancer and emerging dance maker Rentaro Nakaaki, and performed by ENB veteran Fabian Reimair, alongside two of the company’s younger dancers, Martinho Santos and Swanice Luong.

Entitled Bloom, Then Fade, it was a narrative ballet, its simple story told with such delicate cogency and danced with such expressive commitment it was totally enthralling.  An older man (Reimair) watches blooms fall and realises he is inexorably moving towards the end.  He remembers his younger self (Santos) in the days when watching falling blooms was part of a carefree life, alongside the girl he loved (Luong).   Reimair’s older man, shoulders slumped in resignation, contrasted with the vigour of his young version, Santos showing his impressive technique, with a warm Luong providing the bridge that spanned a lifetime.  Liszt’s wistful music was played live by ENB pianist Julia Richter.

The limpid clarity of Nakaaki’s story-telling was truly impressive and it goes a long way towards justifying the star rating of this review.

The biggest name in the cast of Convergence was that of international ballet star, Alina Cojocaru, formerly a much-loved principal with The Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, now a regular with London City Ballet, alongside numerous other international engagements.

Cojocaru danced the pas de deux from Diamonds, the final section of Balanchine’s triptych Jewels, partnered by Denys Cherevychko.    Set to music by Tchaikovsky and intended to convey the grandeur of imperial Russia, this pas de deux fell short.  It is, of course, always wonderful to watch Cojocaru, with her easy technique and innate elegance, and she glittered, but the complete lack of chemistry between herself and Cherevychko, and his tentative partnering, robbed the pas de deux of any impact.

Ballet Nights founder and compère, Jamiel Devernay-Laurence, was particularly chuffed to be able to present a couple of dancers from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre for a UK debut.  Hannah Carter and Lucius Kirst opened and closed the dance part of the programme.

Their first number was a harmonious, neo-classical duet, the first movement from Three Preludes by the late Ben Stevenson, where the two dancers, separated by a ballet barre, mirrored each other’s gestures, touch initially eluding them, until she slid under the barre to join him.  They danced with tremendous elegance and not a little emotion, but I was left wondering why their accompanying Rachmaninov piano music was recorded, when there was a massive piano on stage behind them and there were human musicians around, including Ballet Nights resident pianist Viktor Erik Emanuel, whose interpretation of  Schumann/Liszt’s ‘Widmung’, opened the second half.

Presented with much fanfare as an exclusive preview of a brand new Nutcracker to open in September 2027, the pas de deux with which Carter and Kirst returned to close the evening proved a disappointment.  Danced to Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’, it was an ordinary neo-classical duet, which brought nothing new and compared unfavourably with the original we all know and love.  Maybe it will make sense in context; as a standalone, it didn’t.

It was good to have the opportunity to see the young French street dancer Germain Zambi, whose Frame brought a fascinating blend of Krump and contemporary dance in a beautifully constructed piece, that started in pensive mood and built up to an energetic crescendo, before subsiding into a gentle finale.

And although it was a bit blink-and-you-missed-it, the separation pas de deux from Peter Darrell’s Chéri, was emotionally danced by Samara Downs, as the older courtesan, and Ixan Llorca Ferrer as her younger lover, both of Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Among also runs, there was an entertaining bit of whimsy from Taiwan, and a polished contribution from second year students of English National Ballet School.  And Cherevychko showed himself rather more at ease in the party piece Les Bourgeois, danced to Jacques Brel’s eponymous satirical song.

Ballet Nights 011, Convergence was at Cadogan Hall on 29 April

Cadogan Hall
5 Sloane Terrace
London SW1X 9DQ

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Last Updated on May 1, 2026

Immersive Theatre and Dining at Chat Noir

It’s 1890 in Paris, and the night is young. Imagine you’ve travelled back in time as a guest of Rodolphe Salis, stepping into his infamous nightclub, Chat Noir, to embrace the anarchic spirit of bohemian Montmartre.

The Lost Estate does exactly that, only this time, the illusion unfolds on a Tuesday in April 2026 in West Kensington. Chat Noir is the latest immersive theatre and dining experience from the talented team behind The Great Christmas Feast, a highly successful Dickens-themed production that I saw last Christmas.

Chat Noir takes you on a magnificent, dreamlike journey from the moment you arrive. Staff dressed in period costume welcome you through the doors into a sumptuous cabaret club. At its centre is a stage, surrounded by tables set for the night ahead. Glowing red lighting, candles, and rich velvet set the decadent scene, superbly realised through Thomas Kirk Shannon’s design, and complemented by the pitch-perfect costuming and exquisite couture of Susan Kulkarni.

Tickets for the evening offer different packages. As part of the VIP package we received a glass of champagne on arrival before being seated at a table for two on floor level. Tickets include an excellent three-course Parisian banquet, starting with a charcuterie, cheese and pâté maison which was already on the table, a nice touch, allowing you to tuck straight in. Courses are served seamlessly between acts, by the friendly staff. The show runs, with dinner for 3.5 – but I assure you you’ll be entertained!

The cocktails are also rather good; I can highly recommend the ‘Crusta’, a divine mix of cognac, lemon, sugar and anisette. Wine is served with dinner alongside a choice of Coq au Vin for meat eaters or Chartreuse de Légumes for vegetarians, followed by Tarte au Citron for dessert…Ooo lala! Non-alcoholic options are available. Please note that standard tickets include a three-course meal, but drinks are purchased separately.

The music instantly transports you to the era: Guy Button on violin, Peteris Sokolovskis on cello, Will Fry on percussion, Áine McLoughlin on accordion, and Alex Ullman on piano. This highly accomplished band seamlessly intertwines with the performers, setting the tone and bringing a sense of fun and celebration to the evening.

Hosting the proceedings is the man himself, Rodolphe Salis, excellently portrayed by Joe Morrow, the creator of this daring bohemian revue. In bringing together four highly esteemed entertainers of the day, he propelled Chat Noir to the height of its notoriety.

The artists are exceptional across the board. Paul Legrand, the mime artist, touchingly played by Alexander Luttley in the classic Pierrot tradition, enchants with his melancholy, charm and flashes of humour. There are deft interludes of magic from Joseph Buatier (Neil Kelso), while Issy Wroe Wright commands the stage as the Muse, Yvette Guilbert, with an alluring presence and an impressive vocal range. The evening hots up with the dancer Cléo de Mérode, portrayed with captivating poise and seduction by Coco Belle.

Settling into the night, the show begins. As Salis explains, it unfolds in three acts, beginning with The Essence of Art, “art is death, it matters.”

This is followed by Absinthe, a spirit which was central to the culture of Montmartre at the time and became as much a ritual as it was a drink, which Salis suggests separates us from sanity and reason. For something a little different, an absinthe fountain is brought to the table during the evening. The absinthe comes on the rocks and is dripped over sugar cubes, creating a strong, feisty drink.

Guests are encouraged to play along and descend into the dreamlike world of Rodolphe Salis. As he reminds us, “always be drunk”, “regrets are for tomorrow.” I can certainly vouch for the strength of this highly alcoholic spirit!

The final act is Anarchy, a descent into the mad, unpredictable and misty world of cabaret and Carmen, I challenge you not to embrace it. It’s utterly fabulous. 

A note from Creative Director, William Kunhardt
“CHAT NOIR! is our attempt to bring one of the most seminal moments in Western cultural history back to life: the artistic crucible that was Le Chat Noir in its heyday under founder Rodolphe Salis. This was a place that stood at the very forefront of the European Avant-Garde, a place that birthed so much of modern culture and yet today, it stands largely forgotten. In reimagining what it was like, we’ve tried to create something total – a living work of art you can step inside – where music, performance, food, and world-building collide to transport and move you.

Cabaret, at its birth, was dangerous, outrageous and experimental. By combining obsessive research with creative fantasy – what was with what might have been – we hope we’ve recreated not just the club, but the actual feeling of being there. In a world of screens, tension, and ‘AI slop’, I believe this cocktail of pure escapism and passionate, uplifting ideology feels not just joyous, but urgent and necessary.” 

CHAT NOIR! is at The Lost Estate, 9 Beaumont Avenue, London W14 9LP, near West Kensington and Earl’s Court stations.
020 3666 2182 

Now booking until end of July 2026

Check out our London Theatre Previews, January – July 2026 – Off West End

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