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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
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Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Sarah Frater's rating
Reader rating
Description: Set in 18th Century Paris, Manon is the young girl vying for two loves, featuring music by Jule Massenet and choreography by Kenneth MacMillan, based on a production by the Royal Danish Ballet.
Trains: Tube: Leicester Square/Charing Cross 
Phone: 0870145 2200
True colours: Agnes Oaks as Manon in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet. Oaks retires at the end of the season
There were huge cheers as the curtain came down, and rarely have they felt so poignant. Thomas Edur and Agnes Oaks usually receive the dignified applause befitting the Swan Lakes and Sleeping Beauties they generally dance, but on Friday they were bravoed and horrayed in almost wild style after their London debut of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon.
Edur, normally all restraint, looked glassy eyed, while she smiled the saddest of smiles, knowing perhaps that their chance to dance MacMillan’s great ballet together had come too late. For most of their 20-year partnership the husband and wife team have danced pretty boggo Nutcrackers. Now, as their careers come to a close (she retires at the end of the season), they showed they were capable of much more.
Oaks was especially good as the beautiful young Manon. She’s long been pegged as a dancer of mono emotions and balletic formality, yet her Manon coolly eyes the gemstones while wrapping her innocent-seeming slenderness around the highest provider. The only reservations are that Oaks plays Manon’s remorse a little too early), and her overwrought make-up in Act III (she should look hollow-eyed, not like a raccoon).
Some aspects of the performance were less good. Mia Stensgaard’s costume designs make everyone look like sugared almonds rather than the rotting fruit of MacMillan’s original. The corps also need better coaching (they’re meant to be courtesans, not cartoon ducks), and Jane Haworth’s Madame was woeful — the character is not a pantomime dame.
This aside, it’s good that English National Ballet are dancing Manon. The company’s artistic director Wayne Eagling, who as a young dancer was the second cast in MacMillan’s 1974 original, persuaded the choreographer’s estate to let ENB have it, meaning his work will be seen outside London.
Until 11 January. Information: 08700 40 2000, www.ballet.org.uk.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
MacMillan's Manon has been touring with ENB since the Autumn and came to London with its 21st performance premiering in the capital. Although the steps are the same as the Royal Ballet's, the production differs considerably in the way that it is presented - its lack of lavishness speaking of designs conceived to fit regional theatre stages. On the Coliseum opening night, there was a noticeable lack of emotional weight from the deservedly-popular principals, Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur: he was, occasionally, less than secure (at the start of his first solo for example) and their initial, heady, bedroom pas de deux lacked that ultimate ounce of abandon and, therefore, much of the expected frisson. Massenet's opulent score was delivered precisely (but with a noticeable lack of engagement) by the orchestra and although many appeared moved by the big Act Three pas de deux, the comparatively-muted applause that accompanied subsequent curtain calls - despite some hearty initial bravos - reflected the overall impression of this coolly-efficient evening on its audience. A welcome addition to ENB's touring repertoire, this Manon will broaden the audience for a MacMillan masterpiece that London has monopolised for far too long: on home ground, however, it faces tough competition from its Covent Garden neighbours at the Royal Ballet.
- Clive Burton, London
