The theatrical setting of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes, a favourite children’s book ever since its publication in 1936, makes it a great choice for this year’s National Theatre Christmas treat. It has been skilfully adapted by Kendall Feaver with a few tweaks to the characters and updating some of its attitudes but still set in the 1920s and ’30s and retaining the essence of this story of three girls taking charge of their own destinies through graft, dedication and loyalty.
It begins with a lecture on fossils and dinosaurs by a palaeontologist and explorer whose house at 999 Cromwell Road is like a great cabinet of curiosities; every inch of Frankie Bradshaw’s stunning set is home to something he collected.
Now, to his disconcertion, he becomes responsible for orphaned grandniece Sylvia, aged 11, and has to find room for her. That could interrupt his exploring were it not for his housekeeper, Miss Guthridge, who will take care of Sylvia, becoming her Nana. It is great to see Jenny Galloway back at the National, perfect as sensible but kind hearted Nana, while Justin Salinger as Great Uncle Matthew (GUM) is loveably eccentric.
GUM goes off on his voyages, but now, as well as his specimens, he brings home people, rescued from disasters or abandoned. That is how Sylvia gains three sisters Pauline (who choses their surname of Fossil), Petrova and Posy for whom she now takes on big sister responsibilities.
While they can never be sure how long GUM will be away, an absence of many years with no news of him leaves them strapped for cash, so Sylvia and Nana decide to let rooms, which brings in tenants Theo (Nadine Higgin), a dancer who teaches at a stage school, Dr Jakes (Helena Lymbery), a retired literature academic, and mechanic and motor enthusiast Jai Saran (Sid Sagar), who is an invention of the adapter replacing the original book’s Mr & Mrs Simpson.
It is Theo’s idea that the three growing girls should go to the stage school where they then get education and training for free and possible employment, the school taking an agent’s commission when they are cast as performers. It is run by a former star ballerina Madam Fidolia, imperiously performed by Justin Salinger. Madam becomes the mentor of dance-mad youngest Fossil Posy (Daisy Sequerra). Her elder sister Pauline (Grace Saif), who wants to act, is tutored in Shakespeare by Dr Jakes, while middle Fossil Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez), who is keen on mechanics and aspires to be an aviatrix, finds a friend in Jai Saran.
This is concentrated storytelling with the pace of director Katy Rudd’s staging, the warmth and vitality of the performances and the vigour of Ellen Kane’s choreography combining to make theatrical magic. These actors don’t have to be child-size, you accept they are children and get caught up in their story, and you don’t have to be balletomanes to enjoy it: it is about childhood struggles and aspirations. Theatre buffs may recognise some in-jokes and delight in the way that shows that the children are cast and are presented with a riotous Alice in Wonderland and an avant garde Midsummer Night’s Dream on trapezes, though, true to period, it is more Meyerhold than Peter Brook.
If, like Posy, you are dance mad, you won’t be disappointed: it isn’t just barre work in Madame’s class. Posy and her friend Winifred (Sonya Cullingford) are rivals in showing off their skill, and Xoliswe Ana Richards has a solo as Katerina Federovsky as Madam Fidolia remembers that young self, and there is a brief ballet of her life fleeing Russia. If you are in your seat early, you may even find yourself sharing ballet positions with cast members.
But this Ballet Shoes is a long way from Sugar Plum Fairyland. Sylvia has to go out to work to keep things afloat, the Fossil girls are far from perfect, Dr Jakes is a lesbian whose partner has died, that’s why she needs a room, Jai is an immigrant. There is joy here but pain too; this is more like the real world than storybook, but its show-business pizzazz is invigorating, and its emphasis on application, persistence and loyalty isn’t hammered home.
The man seen directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I think it is Justin Salinger again!) may be a caricature and some of the choreography dance satire, but it is a cast that perform with touching sincerity, and the show has an invigorating brightness that will delight you.
Reviewer: Howard Loxton