The Nutcracker

Published Friday 23 December 2005 at 12:05 by John Percival

This is an unusually jolly Nutcracker - designer Gerald Scarfe led the concept with Christopher Hampson as choreographer and between them they have given the characters and the plot all the wit of Scarfe’s lifetime of cartooning.

There is a surprising amount of poetry, too, and a totally original look - note the giant refrigerator for the Snowflakes - without departing drastically from the original plot for which Tchaikovsky wrote his magical score. If asked for a one-word summing up, it would have to be ‘fun’. And the two usually disparate acts for once really hang together, linked by Scarfe’s wondrous origami flying bird.

All this is achieved partly by the prominence given throughout to Drosselmeyer, presented as showman, magician and also storyteller. Fabian Reimair, good-looking and surprisingly young for this role, played it on opening night with cheerful charm, making much of a strong personality and polished technique. Young Maria Kochetkova matched him equally as the heroine, little Clara - a real poppet.

Dmitri Gruzdyev is as dashing a Nutcracker Prince as you could wish for, joined by Daria Klimentova for a big pas de deux that was both radiant and scintillating.

Special credit to Yat-Sen Chang for a brilliantly ebullient account of the bibulous and lecherous Grandpa, complete with zimmer frame and deliciously leering girlfriend (Jane Haworth). In fact, the whole company dances with an endearing enthusiasm, shared by the orchestra under Michael Lloyd, as if to prove to their new director Wayne Eagling what a strong team he has inherited from his predecessor Mats Skoog.