David Nixon created this version of the fairy tale - a phantasmagoria of grim goblins, dancing cushions, flying fish and magical mirrors - for his former company, BalletMet Columbus, in 1997. Now the artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre, he has brought the show to his new company intact, but the Gothic vaulted castle, humble cottage and thorny forest of its panto-style sets look a bit hand-me-down compared with the award-winning designs usually associated with NBT.
Nixon goes for the full storybook approach, with olde-worlde pages projected on the curtain and a simple narration. The baddie, La Fee Miserable, flies in on a smoke-snorting dragon to do battle with the goodie, La Bonne Fee, who for some reason travels in a fat blue fish. At times you wonder if it's supposed to be a pastiche or just corny family fun.
Instead of the usual princely yet leonine recluse waiting for Beauty to release him from his curse, we have a very different sort of Beast. Part bird, part ram, with curling horns and skulls on his knees, he butts and sniffs our heroine in true ovine fashion. Our handsome prince (danced with style by Jonathan Ollivier) has been taken over by the dark side. To cleanse him, the good fairy turns his evil inside-out and transforms him into the Beast. Only the personal sacrifice of Beauty will restore him.
The Beast is adroitly danced by Hironao Takahashi. Strong on drama, he is a superb technician, gradually shedding his bestiality to become more human. Beauty (Charlotte Talbot) dreams of her handsome prince, and he and his alter ego spin through the magic mirror to dance a series of duos with her, full of romantic, intricate lifts.
There are some jolly slap-stick moments with Beauty's grasping sisters turning on the tantrums, while Pippa Moore's wicked fairy is marvellously malevolent. But the ballet is oddly set to what seems like a CD of greatest hits from the classics. All in all, it lacks the style you might expect from NBT.
