Review: The Nutcracker at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

A flurry of real snow – real snow! – flutters from the theatre’s stunning gilded ceiling at the end of the first half, sprinkling the stalls with gasp-out-loud wintry wonder.

The dancers themselves whirl and twirl like snowflakes, and some of the dizzying spins and leaps that make up the set-piece sequences are truly impressive.

The costumes – glittering pastel ballgowns and embroidered velvet bodices – could be straight from the drawings of Disney, and the party scene in Act 1 is reminiscent of the sweeping, swirling ballroom animation in the original Beauty and the Beast.

The celebration of sweets from around the world in the second half is a delight – like those little national dolls you used to collect in plastic display tubes as a child, brought to life as if in a dream.

For little girls attending their first dance classes, who breathlessly unwrapped soft pink ballet slippers, elasticated leotards and crossover cardigans for Christmas, the show is a perfect first introduction to traditional, classical ballet. It’s a quaint, old-time, ballerina’s ballet, all tutus, tulle and men in white tights. Very tight white tights.

But there’s also something oddly dissonant about the production, performed as part of a UK tour by the International Classic Ballet Theatre company.

The global cast, made up of a host of disparate dancers from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Japan, Australia, the USA as well as Britain, is talented, no doubt.

Feather-light Arisa Hashimoto’s delicate pointe work is precision-perfect, and she is sweetly charming as Clara, the little girl given a nutcracker toy by her mysterious magician godfather Drosselmeier, and who falls asleep and dreams herself with the Sugar Plum Fairy and Nutcracker Prince in the enchanted Land of Sweets.

Armenian dancer Zhanna Tevosyan, who performs the Arabian coffee dance routine in turquoise harem trousers like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, is mesmerising. Her ‘arm-ography’ is hypnotic.

The musicians down in the pit perform Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular score flawlessly, and even the evening with your eyes closed would be a treat – a night at the orchestra, listening to one of the most famous compositions in history, performed live.

But the production is sometimes also just a little bit strange. The scenery is nothing more substantial than painted parachute silk. The real, live snow flurry which ought to be so spectacular before the interval is marred by the very loudly whirring sounds of the snow machine. Whether we were supposed to laugh at the remote-control robot rat with glowing red eyes which heralded the arrival of the Mouse King I’m still not sure.

Some of the choreography feels perfunctory, and the scene changes in particular are stilted. One scene ends. The stage is left empty. The next dancer waits awkwardly in the wings. Then with an almost imperceptible nod they step on.

The unnamed conductor of the nameless orchestra appears at the end to take his bow as the dancers in the supporting corps de ballet wear fixed smiles. You get the feeling nobody speaks not just because this is the wordless medium of ballet.

Dance might well be the common language of the assembled artistes from around the world, but there’s something slightly lost in translation about their otherwise prettily pleasant and nostalgic show.

• The Nutcracker as at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, until Saturday, January 13.