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The choreography, music and performance made this an impressive event, but Iommi’s cameo was an emphatic cherry on the top that sent the crowd home with an enthusiastic spring in their step.

An interesting mix of classical, contemporary, hip-hop and cultural choreography graced the stage at the Linbury Theatre for International Draft Works 2025.

The Royal Albert Hall turns out to be a wonderful venue for Birmingham Royal Ballet's transporting Nutcracker.

Visually pleasing, superbly danced and musically rousing, yet Luna doesn’t quite reach the pinnacle. 

Ballet’s best romcom, a lovingly maintained classic.  

Birmingham Royal Ballet and Black Sabbath are two of Birmingham’s greatest cultural exports and now they are on a European tour together before heading to the US next year.

Sir Peter Wright's The Sleeping Beauty exudes that magical, ageless feeling, here brought to life by a new and enchanting performance of the title role.

A remarkable merging of two of Birmingham's greatest cultural institutions.

Sir Peter Wright’s production returns to Birmingham Royal Ballet after an absence of five years, with Céline Gittens and Brandon Lawrence sharing great chemistry. 

Morgann Runacre-Temple's new creation, Hotel, appears in a triple bill between Uwe Scholz' Seventh Symphony and Jiří Kylián's Forgotten Land. 

Carlos Acosta's Don Quixote hits the road with a successful London residency at Sadler's Wells.

Carlos Acosta restages his Royal Ballet Don Q in a refreshing revamp for Birmingham Royal Ballet.

BRB's director, Carlos Acosta, has taken a hands-on approach to coaching the principals in their roles in this season opening production. 

A triple bill about Birmingham brings Birmingham Royal Ballet back to live.

Outstanding performances all-around in this special treat for Christmas 

The welcome return of a thoughtful interpretation of this much-loved ballet  

A sumptuously designed example of English ballet at its best 

A unique marriage of production and performance space provides a spactacle synonymous withe spirit of Christmas 

Sir Frederick Ashton's quintessentially English ballet returns, dressed in pastel shades with knockabout fun everywhere.

Birmingham Royal Ballet presents a double bill subtitled ‘Two ballets fuelled by power and politics’ as part of David Bintley’s last season as director. 

It is good to see Birmingham Royal Ballet in such fine fettle. This triple bill is well conceived and deftly performed. Not always flawless in its execution, but a five star programme nonetheless.

Like meeting the near-identical twin of that much-loved friend: BRB's fine performance of their unique take on Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet 

Sir Peter Wright's version of The Sleeping Beauty has stood the test of time, though this opening night of the tour in Southampton didn't always convince that the work has a place of adoration in the company’s heart.

It starts like a scene from Mary Poppins, with penguin waiters nimbly weaving between waltzing couples, but ends with a deft blow to the stomach to deliver its environmental message.

All the creative contributions of direction, choeography, designs and music come together to achieve a stirring ballet that tells a familar story with great clarity 

A pleasing finale to a remarkable nationwide celebration of a great British choreographer.  

A fine start to this unique collaboration between the five major ballet companies in the UK to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the passing of one of Britain's greatest choreographers 

David Bintley's 2010 Birmingham Royal Ballet version of Cinderella is the antithesis to Ashton. Instead of pantomime, he offers pure fairy tale every magical step of the way.

For the second time in a week, Birmingham Royal Ballet celebrate Shakespeare with a wonderful evening of dance.

It can’t be easy to programme a Shakespeare season that has something new to say about this giant figure in a year of excellent productions up and down the country, but this programme achieves it. 

BRB delivers in a production of jolly moods, bawdy humour and great emotions.

As part of their Shakespeare400 celebration, BRB give a touching account of the Bard's timeless classic Romeo and Juliet.

An enchanting Ashton double bill in Birmingham comprising The Dream, to mark Shakespeare400, and A Month in the Country. 

Birmingham Royal Ballet presents its Variations Triple Bill at Sadler’s Wells, with works by George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton and David Bintley

True to its origin in the Romantic period of the 19th century, this Swan Lake dances the Royal Birmingham Ballet into history because of the beauty of its leading dancer, Céline Gittens, one of the world's first non-white ballerinas.

Gods, nymphs, campy cavemen, angel's wings and a one-legged pirate - this production has it all, and plenty more. 

Celebrating 20 years as Artistic Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, David Bintley brings the company to London, where Balanchine’s Serenade acts as a delicate sorbet before the excesses of Bintley’s own Carmina burana.  

This is not a story about a prince or princess; there are no fairies, no spells, no swans. And yet it is an entirely enchanting story...

Moving Stateside, a Programme which combined Serenade, by George Balanchine, Lyric Piece, a Jessica Lang work and Twyla Tharp's In The Upper Room, were gems from America that travelled across the Atlantic to be set on the ever evolving, risk taking, hard working Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Shadows of War Birmingham Royal Ballet's triple Bill which opened at the Birmingham Hippodrome early last week, shows the company's more serious side. With choreographies of MAcMillan, Lynne and Bintley 

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Beauty and Beast is a wonderful, joyful and entertaining perormance, based on the well known gothic fairytale.

Birmingham Royal Ballet take us on a pilgrimage to Mount Fuji with The Prince of the Pagodas at the Birmingham Hippodrome. 

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Three of a Kind is an evening of atypical works including Card Games By John Cranko, George Balanchine's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations. At Birmingham Hippodrome. 

Birmingham Royal Ballet's The Nutcracker, with choreography by Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov and Vincent Redmon, was a magical evening of pure nostalgia.

Frederick Ashton used to say it was like a lesson in choreography every time he watched The Sleeping Beauty. For Kenneth MacMillan too, the ballet was the pinnacle of classicism and technique and a great test of any company’s skills.

To begin their week-long run in London at Sadler’s Wells, the Birmingham Royal Ballet presented a diverse triple bill of works choreographed by Artistic Director and British ballet icon David Bintley CBE.

The evening was a step back into childhood nostalgia, of getting on the hired coach with my brother and neighbours from our cul-de-sac, to drive up to London for the traditional Christmas pantomime. And, of course, Aladdin with all that mystical eastern magic was always a favourite with us kids.

When The Grand Tour was premièred in 1971, the cast of celebrities it satirises were still well known, even though their 1930s heyday had passed. The problem with this rather lovely little work now is that its references are just too far in the past: neither the dancers nor the audience know who these exaggerated oddballs – Gertrude Lawrence, Theda Bara – were, or what they were famous for.

Opposites Attract was the title chosen to tie three pieces together in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s first triple bill at Sadler’s Wells this week, but that was optimistic: these three were so different in both style and quality that it was hard to find any affinity between them, or any sense of the company as a whole.

Coppélia is one of the more light-hearted of the full-length classical ballets. Based very loosely on Hoffmann’s more macabre short story Der Sandmann, the plot revolves around the tempestuous relationship of its protagonists, Swanilda and Franz; and the work of the inventor Dr Coppélius, who is both brilliant and barmy.