Ballet Shoes @ National Theatre, London

Cars! Dinosaurs! Fossils! Aerialist futuristic fairies! Ballet! Lots of my favourite things on one stage in one show! You’ve read the book, danced the dance, now see the show!

A charming, poignant and very funny play version of Noel Streatfield’s classic, there’s great dynamic choreography throughout. Kendall Feaver and Katy Rudd’s production is also very dynamic — using lighting, parts of the theatre, minimal props. a giant library step ladder and some terrific hidden musicians to conjure up every scene. The musicians provided a wonderful jazz based score. We also got a strong sense of the rambling house through lit up fossils and biology collections, mixed with paintings and horrible DIY projects.

Even if you hate ballet, there’s an audience clap along at the end as the cast jive and swing to hot jazz! You can also enjoy a wonderfully slo-mo sibling playground fight (fists are flying) and expulsion from yet another school. If you love ballet, you can enthusiastically participate in some audience ballet classes at the beginning — mostly arm movements from the basic positions and much applause. Though we did head towards Macarena (ay!) at one point.

Great Uncle Matthew (aka GUM) boldly and creatively ventures across the globe, collecting orphaned and unwanted babies along the way. Who become his ‘Fossils’. His adventures are creatively envisaged — a gorgeously lit sailing ship billows in full sail until it’s stormily ship-wrecked, and at another point he climbs a perilous mountain step-ladder with a charming goat puppet at the top. Whilst an eagle flaps by. In yet another moment of peril, he has some horrible operations which are comically rendered: (a bit in the style of Nye).

Posy (Daisy Sequerra) must dance and find a living dance teacher! Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez) must STEM! engineer, drive and go to Croydon to gaze at planes — and eventually fly them! Pauline (Grace Saif) must avoid the other two, everyone and dislike everything — but turns to be the one who must act and make movies…in America! Then there’s their guardian, Sylvia Brown (Pearl Mackie) who just wants them to have a regular education and worry-free childhood, ignoring the genteel poverty, budget buffering lodgers and threat of losing the house after Great Uncle Matthew (Justin Salinger) has been missing for seven years, presumed dead.

One of the lodgers is a Doctor of Literature, the other a professional dancer — and they know a thing or two, and some very useful DIY-ing stagehands. And yes, when there’s music on in the dancer’s digs, everyone must dance! Then there’s the douty Nana (Jenny Galloway) doing all the practical things everyone else forgets about, but who is really the ballast to all the hysterics in this artsy theatre kids set-up. Though portrayed as dour, she’s open-minded, kind and incredibly loyal — and knows a miracle when she sees one. There’s a powerful moment when Pauline rages at God for not caring, listening, acting — and behold, He does. The telephone rings offering her a money paying part!

Powerfully, for then and now, this is a book about girls, young women and women of all ages learning to be themselves, to purposefully use their talents and gifts in public, to develop useful and lucrative careers, about having choice and seeking to contribute to their family economy by stealth. Definitely no Nepo babies here, as they vow ‘no grandfathers’. Nor will they be kicked out of the family home without a fight back, which leads them to seek stagey moments to earn a honest coin or note.

As scenes change, the cast dance around, giving a terrific sense of movement and keeping us immersed in this dance focused world. However, it’s not just about becoming a ballerina — it’s about cars! Not Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Back To The Future, the car drives on stage — and eventually… to Croydon!

Beautifully done was when Russian former ballerina and now dance teacher Madame Fidolia (Justin Salinger)…recalled her journey from Prince’s beautiful girlfriend to fleeing Russia through the Revolution — and starting again as a refugee in the UK, fighting a health condition. The powerfully danced storytelling, a princely pas-de-deux, wordlessly produced and partly brought to life through the use of reflections in mirrors was so powerful.

I did enjoy seeing an old wrinkly bat Ballerina in a terrible wig when they all descended on the French ballerina! Couldn’t help but think of from Edna Mode the Incredibles (or Andy Warhol!) Modernised just enough, the book and all its idiosyncrasies remained! Pearl Mackie played a charming guardian and there was heaps and heaps of romance, fun, resolving sibling feuds and bad dancing, just from her character alone!

And how kind Nana was as the lodgers stopped being paying guests and became chosen family. Here the Drs Jakes and Smith, and Mr and Mrs Simpson, have been transformed into one Dr Jakes (Helen Lymbery), socially disgraced Doctor of Literature but exceptional at brushing up on Shakespeare, and car owning would-be romantic suitor Jai Saran (Sid Sagar). Got to love a giggly tipsy Doctor of Literature encouraging Christmas present unwrapping and wandering about clutching not one, but two glasses of different seasonal fizz! Sometimes her character did risk teetering in bluestocking stereotypes, but not at this moment! And Sylvia and Petrova shouting up and down the street and house to each out — about the would-be lodger in the room…

I loved how the dance teacher, Theo Dane (Nadine Higgin), got to dance at the end!!!! and how Pauline (in a filmic not bookish moment) learnt humility as understudy to the earning money for family child actress rival Winifred (Sonya Collingford) in Alice in Wonderland. One shall not strangle their understudy or crease their costume! That we got to see the Alice in Wonderland jazz ballet (rabbits jumping and giving everywhere), and even better the very Futuristic Midsummer Night’s Dream with magical flying over the audience. The styling!

I do think the show misses a trick in not having interval ballet classes, the metallic rails of the National Theatre cry out for pliés and even an emotional Grand Rond de Jambe. All those Lockdown Cindies kitchen ballet classes come to mind! After all the jiving at the end, it’s hard not to high kick your way out of the building. And even if you never buy merch, you will want it for this show!!!

***Spoiler………and GUM did not die!***

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