Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Nutcracker, Birmingham Hippodrome, 05 December 2025, until 13 December 2025, 5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.
Photo Credit: Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Nutcracker, Birmingham Hippodrome, 05 December 2025, until 13 December 2025, 5☆☆☆☆☆.
Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.
“A dazzling Christmas spectacular.”
When The Nutcracker was first performed in St Petersburg in 1892, audiences couldn’t understand the connection between the domestic setting of the first scene and the ballet’s fantasy elements. Perhaps the thoughts of Freud and Jung had yet to gain traction in the upper echelons of Russian society at that time. Now we have less trouble reading it as a dreamscape where the protagonist, Clara, has a fantastical journey exploring her development from girlhood to maturity and sexual awakening.
Sir Peter Wright’s production brings out this element, without hammering it home. In the first scene, young Clara still plays with ballerina dolls. At the same time, when she’s not fighting off her mischievous younger brother, Fritz - played with evil glee by Lawson Hartley - or fetishizing her new nutcracker toy, she can be found flirting with a handsome young cadet (Javier Rojas).
Sophie Walters, in the role of Clara, captures this inbetweener duality perfectly. She approaches each new experience with a beguiling, wide-eyed wonder which draws the audience in. Walters realises her choreography with a youthful fluidity and freshness.
This is particularly evident during her Act I Pas de Deux with the Prince - superbly danced by Lachlan Monaghan. Here the elaborate scenery vacates the stage, leaving room for the two dancers to give a thrilling, expansive and electrically charged performance. Meanwhile, in the pit, conductor José Salazar stirs in the passion. The orchestra gives it all they’ve got in what must surely be one of the musical score’s most tumescent moments.
This is a visually lavish show which still looks good after 35 years. The opening scene is a warm bath of aspirational nostalgia; a sumptuous imagining of everything we would like to think Christmas should be. The second scene is a dazzling, sparkling winter snowscape. The second act opens with the flight of a giant swan across the stage, which still draws oohs and aahs. Indeed, this is a dazzling production with superlative costumes, scenery and stagecraft.
All of the soloists are outstanding. Reina Fuchigami is an exquisite Rose Fairy. Yu Kurihara, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is flawless in the Grand Pas de Deux. The many national dances, with their various choreographic challenges, are all wonderfully characterised and well executed.
This is a timeless show which really does have something for everyone. It reaches out, through its spectacle and magic, to the dyed-in-wool ballet lover and first-comer alike, never failing to delight.
Cast & Creatives