Review: Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Beauty and The Beast at The Lowry Theatre *

Secondly, I wanted to introduce you to the layout of the ballet which is actually pretty complex. Again, like with the Opera, I am not totally familiar with the details (although this isn’t my first Ballet), so I dug around and did a bit of research. The Principal Dancers, of the Beauty and the Beast, were not necessarily the ones with lead roles in performance, however, these are the highest ranking dancers of the collective. This means that they are classed as the most experienced and are often who people have come to see perform. That being said, each and every one of the dancers were amazing on the night. There are The First Soloists, which rank just below the Principal and did include Yvette Knight, who played Belle and Brandon Lawrence who plays The Beast. The Soloists rank just below them and tend to perform solo pieces dotted throughout the performance. Finally, the remaining Dancers, are First Artists, Artists and Apprentices, these were what you would describe in another performance as the Corus.

The Ballet was really beautiful, the stage was so intricately designed, much more intricate than the plays I have been to see at the Lowry, which tend to take on a more simple approach to set design. Each section of the backdrop felt as though you were entering into a live pop-up storybook. It was delicately decorated, and each page/scene really felt part of the performance. The dancers moved around with such ease and grace and as my daughter asked: “how do they jump and stay in the air for such a long time”. I wasn’t really sure how to answer that! They did it so effortlessly light feathers floating about the stage. Each Dancer seemed to shine in their own moments during the telling of the tale, and you went from moments of true beauty to moments of delight and laughter, especially from the role of Monsieur Cochon (Literally Mr Pig – accompanied by a pig nose), who’s silly little allegro movements made me chuckle every time he came on stage!

I really loved how one dance would be accompanied just by say a harp and the flutes, another by trumpets, and another by just the string instruments of the wind instruments. It really gave each section a different feeling. Really allowing you to see the changes in the dances.  The costumes were equally amazing, and flowed with the dancer’s movements or in the case of the Beast made him appear larger than he would have been as the Prince. At this point, our daughters were most taken with Belle and the Ravens, where my daughter thought that their costumes were perfectly matching the effect that the birds and the lead Raven Tzu-Chao-Chou created on the stage. I felt that for a child, Belle was so beautiful and delicate it was hard not to love her, and as for the birds and the Raven when they filled the stage all their movements came into one and really engulfed the scene.

All in all, we had a truly wonderful time and although we took home two tired children, we know how much they appreciated being there,  as it was such a stellar performance.