Performer: Iain Mackay

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. 

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

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.  

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.