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Reviews
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
14/9/03
“The opening night at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in
Leeds was completely sold out…Duncan
Hayler’s
set is an impressive example of what can be done with a big
idea….The applause-winning moment when the ballet studio
walls fly away and the windows and barre magically become
the side view of a departing express train is startlingly
inventive…… ..vividly played and strongly danced.
Nixon’s
pairwork – the ballet is essentially a strong of duets
– is fluent and athletic and ideally suited to the grapplings
of the mixed-up lovers..”
THE OBSERVER 14/09/03
“..Nixon
and his collaborators’ ingenuity has been admirable….such
fecundity of invention is a joy. The dancers are stretched
by the choreography, which tells the story clearly, and the
audience laughs in delight at the staging.”
SUNDAY TIMES 14/09/03
"Northern ballet Theatre's Dream might be saucy, but
it's got pizzazz, too....a bright idea of NBT's director-choreographer
David Nixon,
and the troupe's regular dramaturge, Patricia
Doyle...to translate Shakespeare's plot into
a touring ballet setup. ...brilliant decor by Duncan
Hayler.
It starts out as a ballet studio, all in black and white,
that is then ingeniously transformed into the sleeper train
at King's Cross, which steams off for Edinburgh... ...vivacious
dance numbers...complex manoeuvrings of the mixed-up lovers
in their satin undies, a tour de force of comic acrobatics,
ending, after a dazzling crescendo of activity, with four
in a bed... clever in concept, exuberant in performance, and
I expect NBT with clock up a hit on tour."
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 14/09/03
“..the most imaginative piece of work from NBT in a
very long time, but it’s hard to recall any recent ballet
show so fit to burst with larky good jokes and visual daring….a
flight of fancy made possible by the technical genius of designer
Duncan
Hayler ….choreographer
David Nixon
and his co-director Patricia
Doyle were clearly having too much fun to
stop. The canoodlings and snubbed passes that animate the
two would-be couples inspire some very funny choreography
indeed….stylish entertainment all round. This show packs
in the laughs, it packs in the dance steps, and the company’s
recent push for higher technical standards led by Nixon’s
ballet-coach wife, Yoko
Ichino, is paying off big time. As
for the production values, I don’t think I’ve
ever known an audience applaud the sets so often, or so delightedly….(The
company) has hit its best form again with A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.”
THE STAGE
"The scenary is applauded because it is that good. In
fact, it is outstanding. David
Nixon's setting for this production...is the
mark of audacious thinking....The way that a rehearsal studio
wall changes, in seconds, into a train at King's Cross is
astonishing....Acts I and III are ravishing monchrome with
hints of sepia. Act II's marvellously coloured topsy-turvy
dreamscape is seen through a large blue eye, while beds and
other props are suspended....Pippa
Moore and Christopher
Hinton-Lewis have a wonderful time. Moore's
tiny Helena chasing Hinton-Lewis''
tall Demetrius, their inventive antics are comic joy...Christian
Broomhalll, as both Puck and the Ballet Master,
creates anarchy and order in a splendid fashion.... Nixon
is making excellent technical progress with his dancers. Their
self-belief is unshakeable. He gives his principals fluid,
exciting movements and some very athletic lifting and leaping.
Northern ballet Theatre will gather new audiences with this
Dream. It is a magnificent show."
METRO
"It's not often you see jiving to Mendelssohn or a bird's-eye
view of a train on stage. With Northern ballet Theatre, such
surrealism is perfectly judged......Duncan
Hayler's
set deserves applause all of its own. Trains chug off into
a cloud of smoke, and even tilt to reveal their inhabitants.
Troupe artistic director Theseus (Hironao
Takahashi) and prima ballerina Hipplyta (Desiré
Samaai) transform into Oberon and Titania
once asleep, while Pippa Moore's
petite stature is used to brilliant comic effect as Helena,
reacting like a determined Yorkshire terrier as she is manhandled
by the disdainful Demetrius (Christopher
Hinton-Lewis). With a spoken epilogue by Christian
Broomhall's ballet master Robin Puck, this
is a Dream that implies Shakespeare had dance - with a twist
- in mind all along."
THE TIMES
"..Nixon
has adopted a fresh approach to Shakespeare's frolic. The
play's Athenian royalty is replaced by a 1940s touring ballet
troupe, riddled with emotional entanglements and creative
temperament......The theatrical conceit works like, well,
a dream......The stage teems with life as romantic and artistic
hierarchies are quickly and neatly established. Nixon’s
costumes are stylish and, in a spot of bona-fide crowd-pleasing
magic, the studio wall handily converts into a sleeper train....The
amorous second-act acrobatics among Keiko Amemori's charming
Hermia, Pippa Moore's
gnat-like Helena, Christopher
Hinton-Lewis's determined Demetrius and
Jonathan Ollivier's
hunky Lysander bounce with comic invention. It's great to
hear a full house shaking with laughter at their inspired
dance antics.."
TELETEXT
"Northern Ballet Theatre have a justified reputation
for being innovative and original in their programming, but
with their brand spanking new production of A Midsummer Night's
Dream , they have hit the bullseye. Not once, but several
times. You can almost hear a quivver-full of well-aimed arrows
bouncing into that centre circle - it's beautifully danced,
choreographed with inspiration, designed with definitive style,
and the orchestrations are superlative. It really doesn't
get very much better than this - a five star, ocean-going,
fur-lined, gold-plated, zonker of a work which will delight
audiences where-ever it comes to rest."
DAILY TELEGRAPH
“A Midsummer night’s steam, anyone? Northern Ballet
Theatre’s idea to rework Shakespeare’s amorous
comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the theme of a forties
ballet company taking the sleeper train from London to Edinburgh
is a happy one. The aptness of the setting for lovers’
squabbles, egos and hierarchy (ballerinas over here, stage
mechanicals over there), and the striking rightness of having
the touring train enter a tunnel at midnight to unleash the
dream, all of this gives the concept by David
Nixon and Patricia
Doyle a flying start….. …the quartet
of lovers….is fast and funny and unselfconsciously eloquent….In
a spirited cast, feisty Pippa
Moore steals the show as the wall flower Helena.”
THE GUARDIAN
"Northern Ballet Theatre's David
Nixon has reinvented A Midsummer Night's Dream...The
sleeping cast are sucked into a collective dream in which
their problems are fantastically elaborated and magically
resolved. There are fine aspects to NBT's new production,
one of which is Nixon’s
- and the dancers'- unexpected gift for comedy....Nixon’s
witty detailing and the dancers' riotous involvement give
these roles a fresh spin, and Steven
Wheeler is deliciously hissy and sour as the
queeny wardrobe master. The lovers' comic mishaps are even
funnier. Pippa Moore's
fiery Helena pursues Demetrius with a reckless disregard for
dignity and safety, and when all four lovers are ducking and
diving through a chaos of multiple embraces, Nixon
piles on the jokes magnificently....Duncan
Hayler’s
designs are a gift....All this performed by a company on fine
form, adds up to a smart, entertaining evening."
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