There’s something for everyone in a night at the ballet

The annual trip to the ballet is a highlight in our family and challenged only by the seasonal pantomime in terms of anticipation and excitement generated.

Fortunately, just as the Macrobert is always the venue for the pantomime, for the ballet it is always whatever Scottish Ballet are putting on. We once went to a lesser ballet company’s production but after a couple of the dancers fell over on stage and a shoe flew into the audience, even my children, small as they were, decided that it is better to stick to quality.

This year’s Scottish Ballet production, Sleeping Beauty, opens this week in Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre. Just before Christmas we went to Glasgow’s Theatre Royal to catch a preview.

As veteran ballet watchers, my two know the value of reading the programme before the performance starts. You might think you know the story of Sleeping Beauty, but would you recognise the Bluebird, or the mutant daughters of Carabosse, the wicked fairy? It’s best to have a quick scan to get the gist before curtain up.

The set design is beautiful with backdrops ranging from a Victorian glasshouse to the thickets through which the prince must fight, but it’s the costume design that really knocks your socks off. At Princess Aurora’s birth the dancers are dressed in clothes inspired by the 1830s (the king looks uncannily like Prince Albert). Sixteen years later, on Aurora’s birthday, they are early Victorians in ruffled dresses and sideburns and after the 100-year sleep they return as post-war minor European royalty, holed up in a London hotel but still dressed fabulously.

As for the dance, my children, aged 13 and ten, appreciate it in different ways. My daughter is old enough to comment on technique and loved a pas de deux by two male principals for being original and athletic. My son was impressed with the grotesque costumes of the mutants who, according to the programme, are half bat and half pig. But then his favourite ballet moment of all time was the year Cinderella’s ugly sisters cut their toes off.

And we all loved the stand-out dances; Aurora travelling across the stage on one toe and the male dancers competing to stay in the air just a split second longer than you thought humanly possible. At the end you feel as if your senses have been battered on all sides. And, as my son reminded me, there is ice-cream at the interval too.

Sleeping Beauty is at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from 11-14 January with matinees on Thursday and Saturday. Tickets from £10, Festival Theatre Box Office, 0131-529 6000. Scottish Ballet will also be arranging a treasure trail and a backstage broadcast at the Museum of Scotland, for details go to www.scottishballet.co.uk