Voices of British Ballet

Keith Money is a pioneering photographer of ballet. He moved from loving and photographing horses to loving and photographing dancers. He decided he wanted to see the nuts and bolts of a dancer’s life, so he developed an entirely different approach to ballet photography. In this podcast he explains to Patricia Linton how it was watching Margot Fonteyn and her artistry that first inspired him to work with dancers. The interview is introduced by Tobias Round who is the son of dance photographer, Roy Round.Keith Money was born in New Zealand in 1927 and educated there. He received a Fine Art degree from the Elem School of Fine Art before setting off for the country of his English forbears. Gifted in four disciplines, writing, photography, and painting in oil and watercolour, he has written, painted and travelled extensively.Initially a contributor and illustrator for a variety of equestrian publications, Money also wrote for national newspapers and journals. He then authored books of his own and published collections of his own extraordinary photographs, as well as painting in oils and watercolour. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s he had both solo exhibitions and was included in many others. His work has given lasting pleasure. The nub of it all is his wonderful eye, whatever his subject, whether it is horses, dancers or skies; and it is this that will hold true for posterity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joseph Horowitz is the composer of16 ballets scores, two one-act operas, five string quartets, nine concertos, and many works for wind and brass, as well as music for television. He made his Royal Ballet debut in 1990, revising Adolphe Adam’s score for Peter Wright’s production of Giselle. Other ballets include Alice in Wonderland, composed for Festival Ballet in 1953. In this episode he explains to Patricia Linton that his early enthusiasm was for the visual arts, and that it was only from about the age of 19 that he turned seriously to music. After a degree at Oxford University, he attended the Royal College of Music and then went to Paris for revelatory study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. While there he went to Boris Kochno’s ballet class, saw Yvette Chauviré dance (which greatly inspired him), and was given sage advice on writing for the ballet by Roland Petit. After that, in 1951 he conducted for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe, at the end of their existence. Colin Davis, a contemporary as a student, was co-conductor, and the ballet master was Serge Grigoriev, whose musical understanding turned out to be somewhat idiosyncratic. The episode is introduced by Stephen Johnson.Joseph Horowitz, the British composer and conductor, was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1926. His father was the co-founder of Phaidon Press, which he founded in 1923. In 1938, the family emigrated from Austria, to escape the Nazi threat, and to seek a safer life in England. Horovitz read music and modern languages at New College, in Oxford, while simultaneously giving piano recitals for army camps during the war. This progressed to studying composition at the Royal College of Music in London under Gordon Jacob, where he won the Farrar prize. He then went to Paris to continue his studies under Nadia Boulanger.In 1950, Horovitz became the music director of the Bristol Old Vic. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 he conducted ballet and concerts at the Festival Amphitheatre in London. He then conducted for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe. During the 1950s, a number of his compositions were broadcast on the BBC, and in 1961 he became Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music where he was later awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music.As well as the Commonwealth Medal in 1959, Jospeh Horowitz won many awards for his music, both in this country and abroad. He died in 2022.Image: © Wolfgang Jud Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast featuring Donald MacLeary, the ballerina Darcey Bussell makes a fascinating and full introduction to her friend and mentor. She stresses the importance of a coach who is both knowledgeable and intuitive, for a dancer flourish. The backbone of British ballet is storytelling and both Darcey and Donald underline how important it is to keep this tradition alive. Donald Macleary is in conversation with the dance critic Alastair Macaulay.Donald MacLeary was a dancer noted for his finesse and natural romanticism, and for his legendary partnering skills. He had an association with The Royal Ballet for 48 years. Born in Glasgow in 1937, he studied ballet with Sheila Ross from 1950. He then went to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and joined Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954. In 1959, when Svetlana Beriosova asked for him as her regular partner, he moved to The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, becoming its youngest principal dancer at the time.MacLeary created roles for John Cranko, including in Brandenburg 4 and 6 in 1964, and for Kenneth MacMillan, including in The Burrow (1958), Symphony (1963) and Elite Syncopations (1974). After his retirement from dancing in 1975 he was appointed ballet master for The Royal Ballet from 1976 until 1979. He later appeared as a guest artist for a number of companies, including Scottish Ballet, and was a répétiteur at The Royal Ballet from 1981 (for principal dancers from 1984) until his retirement in 2002. Donald MacLeary was appointed an OBE for services to dance in 2004. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here Barbara Fewster tells us about working at The Royal Ballet School. Her voice has a mixture of authority and kindness which will be remembered by literally thousands of students over the 40-odd years she both taught and directed there. However, there is also has a tinge of something students rarely noticed, something more searching and pensive, of sadness even. Many dancers, both in The Royal Ballet and in many other companies, owe their careers to her, and remember what she did for them with genuine gratitude. Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, feels she owes her own career to Fewster, saying, “She scooped me up from a moment of student gloom when I was about 18 and gave me an opportunity that led to a chance to join The Royal Ballet’. In this interview Barbara Fewster talks to Patricia Linton who also introduces the episode in conversation with Natalie Steed.Barbara Fewster was born in 1928. She studied dancing at the Wessex School in Bournemouth before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1942. By 1943, at the height of World War Two, she was performing and touring the country with the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet. In 1946 she became a founder member of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, a company that became a hot bed of talent for the future of British ballet and a springboard for many and varied careers. There were extensive tours, both at home and abroad, where Fewster was at first a dancer, and then assistant ballet mistress from 1947. When Peggy Van Praagh left the company in 1951, Fewster became the ballet mistress.Against all the odds of a depressed post-war Britain, ballet was vibrant. The emergence of a swathe of talented choreographers, together with a remarkably varied existing repertoire, helped to build a bright future. On leaving the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954, Fewster toured the United States of America as ballet mistress with the Old Vic Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, before joining the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, which was now based with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Barons Court in West London. She became deputy principal to Ursula Moreton in 1967 and succeeding her as principal in 1968. Fewster joined the Grand Council of both the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Cecchetti Society by its founder, Cyril Beaumont, in the late 1960s.Barbara Fewster was an indefatigable traveller and was always inspired by her experiences of teaching and adjudicating worldwide. She was at the heart of an historic cultural exchange with China in the early 1980s, involving an exchange of students and teachers. Fewster was also the driving force of a video for the Cecchetti Society in 1988, to promote and improve good practice in the teaching and understanding of pointework. She has frequently mounted ballets for professional companies, notably Coppélia for the Turkish Ballet in 1993 and a revival of La Fête étrange by Andrée Howard, a ballet close to her heart, for The Royal Ballet in 2003. There is a scholarship in Fewster’s name as part of the Cecchetti Class Ballet Vocational Awards.image: Barbara Fewster, Ballet Principal of Royal Ballet School (1968-1988) helping a student prepare for a school performance, circa 1960's; Credit: Royal Ballet School / ArenaPAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From a start in Flamenco, Greek dancing and a bit of ballet, Anita Landa describes here not only how her dancing life took off, but how Festival Ballet started. The Cone Ripman School, Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, a healthy injection of glamorous Diaghilev stars and repertoire all get proper credit. However, the lion’s share of the company’s success, she says, was down to the indefatigable impresario Julian Braunsweg. ‘Without him there would be no English National Ballet!’ In this interview Anita Landa talks to Patricia Linton, and it is introduced by the dance writer and critic Deborah Weiss who is a former senior soloist with London Festival Ballet.Anita Landa must have been vivacious from birth! Her dancing life has been refreshingly varied. Born in Las Arenas in Spain in 1929, she moved to the UK just before World War Two, but the Spanish part of her character and her early life was to prove an important catalyst and influence on her future. After four years studying a variety of dance styles at the Ginner-Mawer School, Landa spent some time at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School whilst simultaneously continuing her Spanish dancing studies with Elsa Brunelleschi. Her next and fortuitous move was to the Cone-Ripman School. From here she succeeded in an audition for the newly formed Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1949. The company soon took root and became known in 1950 as Festival Ballet.The company’s very distinct international outlook suited Landa. She revelled in the life, absorbing much from the galaxy of star dancers and the extensive repertoire. She became a principal and danced until 1960 when, married to fellow dancer, Michael Hogan and expecting their first of three children, she retired. However, after eight years she returned to the ballet world. Her broad dance background and natural intelligence and sparkle made her an ideal choice for the intricate role of ballet mistress. After working with Northern Ballet Theatre and on various Nureyev Festivals, she joined the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in 1979. She remained with the company as ballet mistress and character dancer until 1995, including the company’s move to Birmingham in 1990, when Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet became Birmingham Royal Ballet. A wealth of work and activity and acclaim was achieved over these 16 years, until Anita handed the baton over to Marion Tait. She continued to be involved in ballet related activities, including being a member of the National Council for Dance Education and Training for several years. Hugely knowledgeable and exuberant, she is a bonus at any gathering. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gerald Dowler hosts a special episode about the comic ballet Pineapple Poll created for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its creators John Cranko and Charles Mackerras.Pineapple Poll, was the first major success on the London stage for both its choreographer, John Cranko and its arranger and music director Charles Mackerras. Mackerras suggested to Cranko the story from W.S. Gilberts Bab Ballad, The Bumboat Woman's Story. Set for six couples and lead characters of Poll, Jasper, the pot-boy who loves her Belleye, Captain of the HMS Hot Cross Bun Blanche and her aunt, Mrs. Dimple, it represented the largest forces used by the choreographer to date. The original cast featured Elaine Fyfield Poll, David Blair as Captain Belleye and David Poole as Jasper. Sets and costumes were by Obsert Lancaster.It enjoyed huge success throughout the 1960s and 70s, but is now rarely performed. It still exists in name, at least in the repertoire of the Birmingham Royal Ballet.Joining Gerald Dowler around the table are the conductor, Barry Wordsworth, who has long been associated with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia as well as many orchestras worldwide; Nigel Simeone, a writer and musicologist; Reid Anderson who trained at the Royal Ballet School before joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1969, where he became a principal dancer and then later Ballet Master, and returned, after a stint directing the National Ballet of Canada, in 1996 as Company Director, where he remained for over 20 years; and Brenda Last who joined the Royal Ballet in 1963 from Western Theatre Ballet. She became a principal in 1965 and danced an enormous range of roles including the role of Poll in Pineapple Poll.This episode was recorded in 2019. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Farron was born in London in 1922 and was part of the vanguard of extraordinary talent that helped shape ballet in 20th Century Britain. In 1931 she was the first scholarship pupil to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School and two years later she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet, as its youngest member. Vibrant and consummately theatrical, her conversation, like her dancing, is always a mix of wit and wisdom. In conversation with Bruce Sansom, she throws light on the early years of Sadler’s Wells Ballet, with all its attendant conventions and eccentricities. She later became a superb character artist as well as teacher.The episode is introduced by Alastar Macauley in conversation with Natalie Steed.Born in London in 1922, Julia Farron first studied dancing at the Cone School and in 1931 was the first scholarship pupil to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School. Her stage debut was in pantomime at Drury Lane in 1934 and two years later she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet, as its youngest member.Over the next 30 years her fine talent, intelligence and theatrical power helped lay the foundations for the sort of company Ninette de Valois was attempting to forge. From ‘the classics’ as staged by Nicholas Sergeyev, at the start of her career, which she was on the spot to absorb, through to her final role in 1965, as Lady Capulet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Julia Farron danced and created roles for many of the great choreographers of the 20th Century. From the works of de Valois herself, to Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, John Cranko, Léonide Massine and Georges Balanchine, her range was legendary, and thankfully for the generations of students to follow, so were her powers of recall, both practical and theatrical.Her Lady Capulet - a masterpiece of theatrical expertise - was a wonderful culmination to Farron’s career and a fitting tribute from MacMillan to a pioneer of British ballet. Her stage career was followed by a teaching position at The Royal Ballet School from 1964 until 1982, when she was appointed Assistant Director of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 1983 she became Director and retired in 1989 as an Honorary Fellow. In 1994 the Royal Academy of Dance awarded her the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.In her later years Julia Farron was a keen supporter of The Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge Museum and Resource Centre. In 2012 she was appointed OBE for services to dance.Episode photograph: A Mirror for Witches; Julia Farron as Hannah. World Premiere; March 4, 1952 ; Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London ; Music: Dennis ApIvor ; Choreography: Andrée Howard ; Designer : Norman Adams Credit: Roger Wood / Royal Opera House / ArenaPAL.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at Sadler’s Wells SchoolSadler’s Wells School with Ninette de Valois, she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet Company. In this interview she talks to Patricia Linton about how she had to accommodate her dancing with the life of a debutante: being presented at court and taking part in the London Social Season. In this conversation with Patricia Linton she remembers performing in the 1938 Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Vivien Leigh as Titania and dancing in Ninette de Valois's ballet, Checkmate.Rowena Fayre was born in 1921. While attending Highfield School in Hertfordshire, she won a scholarship to Sadler’s Wells School. While there she won the student of the year prize in 1939, and studied in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska (whom she found ferocious) and also with Marie Rambert. She danced various roles with Vic- Wells Ballet, notably in Checkmate in 1937, in an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1938 and in the Sleeping Princess in 1939. She also worked briefly with Mona Inglesby at Eton College (to mark the uncovering of some old frescoes in the chapel). With the advent of war, she joined the WRENS, and left dancing altogether.The episode is introduced by Patricia Linton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Darcey Bussell introduces this interview with Peter Wright. A man of the theatre through and through, in this conversation Peter Wright shows us that fulfilling one’s destiny can be fraught with difficulties and that the path is not always clear-cut. Peter talks about seeing his first ballet, running away from school and then joining Kurt Jooss’ company, Ballet Jooss, as an apprentice in 1943. He tells us about the other companies he danced for before the moment, in 1949, when he first joined Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet.Peter Wright was born in London in 1926. He was originally a pupil of Kurt Jooss, the German dancer and choreographer whose work combined Expressionist modern dance movements with classical ballet. He later studied with more purely classical ballet teachers, such as Vera Volkova and Peggy van Praagh. He experienced the workings and aesthetic of many varied companies and built up a rare knowledge of effective productions, theatrically and technically. Peter joined the Ballet Jooss for a year in 1945, Metropolitan Ballet in 1947 and St James’ Ballet in 1948. He was a soloist with Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet from 1949-51, before returning to Ballet Jooss for one more year. In 1952 he returned to Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, becoming assistant ballet master there in 1955. This was followed by two years of teaching at the Royal Ballet School, at Barons’ Court in London. After assisting Peggy van Praagh at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer of 1958 he went to Stuttgart Ballet in Germany as assistant ballet master. It was here that Peter began to hone his production skills. He produced and directed Giselle for Stuttgart, Cologne and for the Royal Ballet Touring Company. Many subsequent productions particularly Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Coppélia were to follow, for ballet companies all over the world. He also choreographed for The Royal Ballet and Western Theatre Ballet. Direction and production were to be his forte and after enterprising work for BBC TV in the 1960s, he re-joined The Royal Ballet as Associate Director in 1970. By 1974 he was Artistic Director of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and in 1990 he was the inspiration and instigator of this company’s move to Birmingham to become The Birmingham Royal Ballet. He has been the recipient of many honours and awards, including a CBE in 1985, a KBE in 1993 and on his retirement in 1999, Director Laureate of Birmingham Royal Ballet. In 2016, he published his autobiography Wrights and Wrongs: My Life in Dance.Darcey Bussell and Peter Wright are in conversation with Natalie SteedThe episode photograph show Sir Peter Wright standing on stage at The Royal Opera House, London on 5 July, 2006 Photo credit: Credit: Bill Cooper/ArenaPAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades the Hochhauser name has been synonymous with the visits to London of the greatest Russian ballet companies and musicians. In conversation with Hilary Condron, Lilian Hochhauser explains how she and her husband, the late Victor Hochhauser, became involved in artistic management. The indomitable Lilian also talks about her friendship with Mstislav Rostropovich, especially after he left the USSR, and about working with Rudolf Nureyev, both of whom hold special places in her hearThe interview is introduced by Anthony Russell Roberts in conversation with Natalie Steed was recorded before Anthony Russell Roberts death in 2024.Lilian Hochhauser was born in London in 1927 of Russian immigrant parents, and brought up in the East End according to orthodox Jewish principles. She began to work for the charismatic Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, who was responsible for rescuing many Jewish children from the Holocaust. Also working for Schonfield was Victor Hochhauser, who was to become her husband a few months after their first meeting, and with whom she had four children.At Schonfeld’s request Victor promoted a concert with the great pianist Solomon Cutner, to raise money for charity. It was a huge success. From 1945 on the Hochhausers together put on innumerable concerts and eventually ballet performances, 1460 at the Royal Albert Hall alone. To begin with they concentrated on music and worked with many of the most famous musicians in this country, such as Myra Hess, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent and Ida Haendel. In 1953 Igor Oistrakh, the son of the great David Oistrakh, was performing in London, as a result of which the Hochhausers started negotiations with the Russian authorities to see if they could bring David over. This duly happened in 1954, David Oistrakh being the first of a chain of great Russian musicians to be brought over by the Hochhausers: Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, and Mstislav Rostropovich, among many others. Richter and Rostropovich in particular became close friends of the Hochhausers, so much so that when Rostropovich defected from the USSR in 1974, he stayed with the Hochhausers for a year. This led to a breaking off of relationships with the Russians until the fall of the Soviet Union. During this time they turned to China for events.The Hochhausers’ involvement in ballet started early in their career as promoters. In the 1950s they promoted what they called ‘ballet for the masses’ at the now defunct Empress Hall in London. Among those who worked for them in this were the young Svetlana Beriosova, Léonide Massine, Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin, but it was in 1960 that they began working with the Russians, bringing over a group of dancers from the Bolshoi in Moscow, followed in 1961 by the whole Kirov Ballet Company, the first of many such tours, which resumed after Perestroika, and continue well into the 21st century.Victor Hochhauser died, at the age of 95, in 2019, but the work had not stopped, and it continues with Lilian, who was awarded CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for that year. ‘As long as I can keep going, and enjoy it, I will’, which sums up her attitude for almost a century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In any history of The Royal Ballet, a special place must be reserved for Lynn Seymour, as the dance actress par excellence.Here she tells Alastair Macaulay about her initial inspiration in her native Canada, and about how she came to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School at the age of 14. She talks about problems she had with her body and in training, but also about her passionate conviction as to the importance of drama and mime in ballet. This was reinforced when she saw Galina Ulanova with the Bolshoi Ballet in London in 1956. She speaks of the help she received from Winifred Edwards when she was injured, and of the impact Rudolf Nureyev made on her, and later of the importance for her of working with Stanley Williams in New York.The interview is introduced by Alastair Macaulay in conversation with Natalie Steed.During the mid 20th Century British ballet had a piece of good fortune. In 1953 in Toronto, Lynn Seymour was auditioned by Frederick Ashton for a place at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in London, to which she came in 1954.By 1956 she had joined the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, and The Royal Ballet Touring Company a year later where, in 1958, she created the role of the Adolescent in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet The Burrow. This was the start of a long association, with Seymour as MacMillan’s perfect muse. Fiercely intelligent and observant, she was never afraid to sum up situations and react accordingly, a rarity in an age of deference.At a time when it was possible to dance the great classical heroines in quick succession, Seymour was able to absorb and understand what was needed to carry a three-act ballet, something that was going to stand her in good stead in the coming years. By the end of 1959 she had danced Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty and Giselle, as a fully-fledged ballerina at Covent Garden.The next 12 months were defining for both Seymour and British ballet. In 1960 MacMillan choreographed both The Invitation and Le Baiser de la Fée on her and Ashton his ballet The Two Pigeons. Her Juliet in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965, was testament to her unique ability to completely capture the very essence of a role and transpose the mood or idea or argument to something completely believable and absorbing, yet still theatrical and balletic.From 1966 to 1969, Seymour went with MacMillan to dance the the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, where he was Director. She then returned to The Royal Ballet for another eight extraordinary years, where she created the lead in MacMillan’s Anastasia (1971), Ashton’s Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan (1975) and Natalia Petrovna in his A Month in the Country (1976) and then with David Wall as Crown Prince Rudolf, she created the role of Mary Vetsera in MacMillan’s Mayerling.She was a guest artist with many companies, both in Great Britain and abroad and worked with most of the significant choreographers of the age. She also choreographed for various companies and was Artistic Director of both the Bavarian State Ballet (1978-1980) and the Greek National Ballet (2006-2007). Lynn Seymour was uncompromising, innovative, daring and inimitable – a great dancer in any age. She was appointed CBE in 1976. Lynn Seymour died in 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Patricia Linton talks to the artist Jock McFadyen about his work on the designs for Kenneth MacMillan’s The Judas Tree. We hear about Jock’s own rebellious days as a student and about how, as a complete newcomer to ballet, he became involved in The Judas Tree. He quickly realised that he preferred narrative to abstract ballet – Goya to Mondrian, as he puts it – and about how he saw Kenneth MacMillan as the Francis Bacon of ballet. Disclaiming any knowledge of a deeper religious meaning to the ballet, Jock speaks of the difficulty of representing a rape in ballet, and also of MacMillan’s conflicted attitude to authority, with his worries about Princess Margaret being offended by the explicitness of Jock’s sets.The intrview is introduced by the philosopher Anthony O'Hear in conversation with Natalie Steed.Jock McFadyen was born in Glasgow in 1950. His family moved to Stoke-on-Trent when he was fifteen. He went to art school before being thrown out when he was seventeen, but eventually went to the Chelsea School of Art in 1973. After graduating with a BA in 1976 and an MA in 1977, he quickly established a reputation for his gritty pictures of working class life in the inner cities. Deborah MacMillan saw some of his work in an exhibition in Cork Street, as a result of which McFadyen was engaged to work on the designs of her husband, Kenneth MacMillan’s last ballet, The Judas Tree in 1991. Partly as a result of his work on this set, representing London’s Docklands, McFadyen began to work on evocative urban and later rural landscapes. McFadyen was elected to the RA in 2012, and his work is in many major public galleries both in Britain and overseas.Photo: Jock McFadyen with his painting Great Junction Street, 1998; Credit: © Ian Georgeson Photography Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pauline Clayden was born in 1922. Here she talks to Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, about her student days, and moves on to her dancing life up until joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1942. There was great uncertainty for all at the start of World War Two, and Pauline’s excellent memory, combined with her clarity, modesty and humour, shines a light on the assembling and disassembling of various groups of dancers.The interview is introduced by Patricia Linton in conversation with Natalie Steed.Pauline Clayden was born in London in 1922, studying at the Cone Ballet School before her debut with the Covent Garden Opera in 1939. Later that year she joined Anthony Tudor’s London Ballet and stayed with them when they merged with Ballet Rambert. In 1942 she joined Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the height of their extraordinary commitment to ameliorating the ravages of wartime Britain. She was a firm favourite of Ashton’s, and not just because she was so able artistically and temperamentally to successfully take on the roles he had created for Fonteyn. She was a master at understanding the style and underlying pulse and meaning of many different choreographers and approaches. She was a key member of the company for the ENSA organised tours of Belgium and Paris in early 1945 and also of Germany at the end of that year.In February 1946 when the Sadler’s Wells Ballet re-opened the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, she was back on the stage where she had started in 1939. Her tutu for the Fairy of the Song Birds, which she danced in the Prologue of The Sleeping Beauty on that memorable night, is now part of the Royal Opera House Collections. Her roles included Una in The Quest, Ophelia in Hamlet, Chief Child of Light in Dante Sonata, Flower Girl in Nocturne, Waltz in Les Sylphides, Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, the Suicide in Miracle in the Gorbals, roles in The Fairy Queen, La Boutique fantasque, Les Sirènes and dozens of others, an amazing testament to her professionalism and versatility. When she retired in 1956, in order to have a family, she received a letter from Ninette de Valois acknowledging her gratitude for all that she had contributed to the company.During her career with the Sadler’s Well Ballet, Pauline Clayden compiled meticulous and perfectly written notebooks in which she recorded the details of every performance in which she danced, including cast changes due to injury or illness which did not make it into the programme. These notebooks are gold dust and are deposited in the Archives of the Royal Opera House. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James MacMillan is one of the world’s most prolific and widely respected composers. To date, two of his works have been used in ballets, both choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The first of these is his Tryst, an early work, which helped to establish MacMillan as a composer. James speaks to the writer and composer, Stephen Johnson, about the way he and Wheeldon approached Tryst more than a decade after its composition, and of the relationship between the choreography and his music. He then talks about Shambards, the name of a ballet Wheeldon set to MacMillan’s second piano concerto, and also about some of the controversy which arose from the piece, both in New York, and in his native Scotland.James MacMillan was born in 1959. Since the premiere of his The Confession of Isobel Gowdie in 1990, he has established himself as one of the world’s most successful composers, as well as an orchestral and choral conductor on the international stage. His music is filled with influences from his Scottish heritage, from his social conscience, from Celtic folk music, and above all from his Catholic faith. His works include four symphonies, a number of concerti (including three for piano), a number of cantatas and two Passions (St. John and St. Luke). Two of his compositions Tryst and Shambards (from his second piano concerto) have been choreographed in ballets by Christopher Wheeldon for the Royal Ballet in 2002 and New York City Ballet in 2004, respectively. James MacMillan was appointed CBE in 2004 and knighted in 2015.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The great choreographer and director Gillian Lynne tells Lynn Wallis how it was a giant, but ultimately rewarding step, to leave the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951. We have a ten minute trip from the bright lights of the London Palladium to the “fiendishly difficult” score of [Michael] Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage at the Royal Opera House in 1968. Although this is the slimmest of glimpses of Gillian Lynne’s long and extraordinary career as a dancer and choreographer, it is impossible not to feel riveted by the energy in her voice. Theatre is in her very bones.The episode is introduced by Adam Cooper, in conversation with Natalie Steed.Gillian Lynne was born in Bromley, Kent in 1926. She showed an early talent for dancing, and while at school she formed a friendship with Beryl Groom, who was to become Beryl Grey, and also to have a distinguished career in ballet and dance. When her mother died in a car accident when Gillian was 13, she threw herself into dance, partly in order to cope with the tragedy.In 1944, while Gillian Lynne was dancing with Molly Lake’s company at the People’s Palace, Ninette de Valois noticed her talent and invited her to join the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. In the seven years she was there, she became admired as a fine dramatic ballerina. She was particularly noted for her performances as the Black Queen in de Valois’ Checkmate, the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty and as the Queen of the Wilis in Giselle.Gillian Lynne left the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951, and began her successful career in the commercial theatre by appearing in balletic pas de deux in variety shows at the London Palladium. She then appeared as the star dancer in other West End productions, such as Can Can (in which she was Claudine). She also began to work in television and films, including acting in The Master of Ballantrae, opposite Errol Flynn.It is perhaps as a director and choreographer that Gillian Lynne is best known, where her list of credits is immense. She worked at the Royal Opera House, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera, Northern Ballet and the Australian Ballet, as well directing over 60 productions in the West End and on Broadway. As producer, director, choreographer or performer she worked on 11 feature films and hundreds of television productions, where her work included The Muppet Show and A Simple Man, for which she won a BAFTA for her direction and choreography in 1987. Internationally and in the popular mind, she is perhaps most famous for her choreography for the musicals Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love.Gillian Lynne won numerous awards for her work, including the Olivier Award in 1981 for the Outstanding Achievement of the Year in Musicals for Cats, The Royal Academy of Dance’s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 2001 and a Special Award at the 2013 Olivier Awards. She was a Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 2018 the New London Theatre was renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in her honour. She was appointed CBE in 1997 and DBE in 2014 for services to dance and musical theatre. Gillian Lynne died in 2108.Episode photo: Gillian Lynne as the Black Queen in Ninette de Valois’ 1937 ballet, Checkmate, a role she danced over a dozen times between 1950 and 1951. This is a studio portrait, June 23, 1950Music by Arthur Bliss, choreograpy by Ninette de Valois, designs by Edward McKnight Kauffer.  Photo by Roger Wood (c) Royal Opera House / ArenaPAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Siobhan Davies explains to the dance critic Alastair Macaulay her initial engagement with dance in the 1960s. She talks about how she began as an art student, fascinated by the act of drawing, particularly in charcoal, and then started taking dance classes with the Contemporary Dance Group. She was introduced to dance by the Graham technique, with its big strokes and large, sweeping arms and legs. There was, though, something lacking, which Siobhan later found in the smaller, more focused movement of Merce Cunningham. In 1967 she took part in the first public performance of what became the London Contemporary Dance Theatre. A little later, under the aegis of Ballet for All, she took part in a tour of works by Robert Cohan, including Eclipse (a simple, clear duet, with clarity of space) and Cell (politically charged, several couples interacting, ending with a single man on stage). At this time she got to know Richard Alston, another former art student, who shared her views on dance. While she had (and has) huge respect for Cohan, she was beginning to feel that her body was not fully alert. She was restless, and wanted to move on.The interview is introduced by Kenneth Tharp who danced with Siobhan Davies.Siobhan (Sue) Davies was born in London in 1950. Originally studying at art school, she started taking dance classes with the Contemporary Art Group in 1967. In 1969 she became a member of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, and began choreographing in the 1970s. She became the Associate Choreographer of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1974, and its Resident Choreographer in 1983. Important early works were Sphinx (1977) and Plain Song (1981).In 1981 Davies started working with her own group, Siobhan Davies and Dancers. In Siobhan Davies and Dancers joined up with a group founded by Richard Alston and Ian Spink to form Second Stride, which was influential in the 1980s and toured the USA. Davies left LCDT in 1987, winning a Fulbright Arts Fellowship to spend a year studying in America, the first choreographer to do so. On her return in 1988, she founded her own company, Siobhan Davies Dance, and also became the Resident Choreographer of Rambert Dance Company, a position she held until 1992. Important works created in the 1990s included Make-Make (1992), Wanting to Tell Stories (1993), Wild Translations (1995) and Bank (1997).In the early 2000s Davies began moving away from pieces for performance in traditional theatres to site specific works, in such venues as art galleries, studios, and even on occasion an aircraft hangar. In 2007 she abandoned touring productions altogether and disbanded the Siobhan Davies Dance company in favour of working with the Siobhan Davies Studios, which had opened in 2006 in Lambeth, South London. This is a multi-media complex enabling the exploration of relationships between dance and movement and the visual arts, film, video, craft, poetry and sound. In 2012, in collaboration with the film maker David Hinton, Davies created All This Can Happen, a film composed entirely of archive photographs and film, which was shown in international film festivals around the world.Siobhan Davies was appointed DBE for services to dance in 2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Critic and writer Clement Crisp gives a succinct and vivid summing up of the debt British ballet owes to Constant Lambert, not just as the conductor for the Vic-Wells and then the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, but as what Crisp calls their artistic conscience. He also speaks about Lambert’s own musical genius, both as a composer and a conductor, and his penchant for reviving unjustly overlooked music. The interview ends with the sad story of the ballet Tiresias and Lambert’s early death only weeks after its premiere.The interview is introduced by Gerland Dowler in conversation with Natalie Steed.Widely regarded as the doyen of British ballet criticism, Crisp was an imposing figure in the ballet world, both in person and in print, and was so for nearly half a century. His dazzling knowledge of dance (and other arts), authoritative style and occasional waspish barb made him a voice to be reckoned with. His passion for ballet began at the age of 12. He was educated at Bordeaux and Oxford Universities, and after spells in business and teaching, he became the ballet critic of the Spectator in 1966, followed in 1970 by several decades on the Financial Times. He was the Librarian and Archivist at The Royal Academy of Dance from 1968-1986, and Archivist until 2001. He wrote many books on ballet and its history and related arts, frequently co-authored with Mary Clarke. In 1992 he received the Royal Academy of Dance’s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award, and was also made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog, Denmark. He was awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to ballet. He died in 2022.Episode photo: L-R: John Field, Clement Crisp and Leslie Edwards in conversation at The Royal Opera House, London in 1975.© G.B.L. Wilson/Royal Academy of Dance/ArenaPAL.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This self-effacing, straightforward man with a twinkle in his eye is known for his compositions for many TV dramas in the 1960s and 70s, including Doctor Who. Perhaps surprisingly, this career started in ballet! Dudley Simpson recounts to Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, how he travelled from Australia to the Royal Opera House where, with virtually no preparation, he conducted the orchestra of over 70 players, for a ballet performance of Coppélia. Dudley explains how this turned out.This episode is introduced by Barry Wordsworth in conversation with Natalie Steed.Dudley Simpson was born in Melbourne in 1922 and showed an early musical talent. At the age of 13 he won a piano competition for a radio station, and became its official accompanist. While excelling at improvisation, he also studied musical theory, including orchestration and composition. His studies were interrupted by five years military service in the Australian army, after which he started working for the Borovansky Ballet (the fore-runner of The Australian Ballet), first as a pianist and then as assistant conductor and, in 1957, as its musical director.As a result of working in Australia with Margot Fonteyn and a group of ballet dancers from the UK, Simpson decided to go to London. He worked first as a ballet pianist, but in 1959 began to conduct the Royal Opera House Orchestra in ballet performances, becoming its principal conductor from 1960 to 1963. This involved a considerable amount of touring in Europe and the Middle East, with Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev leading the company. In 1963, Simpson arranged Lizst’s B minor sonata for Frederick Ashton’s ballet Marguerite and Armand.By 1964, he had already started working for television. Simpson began the work for which he is best known, the incidental music for Doctor Who. This involved composing and directing the music for 62 stories over nearly 300 episodes. Simpson’s involvement with Doctor Who continued until 1980. During this period he worked on many other television series, including The Brothers, Blake’s 7, The Tomorrow People and Tales of the Unexpected. He also composed symphonic music and music for two ballets, A Winter Play for Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and Ballet/Class for the The Royal Ballet School. Simpson retired in 1987 and returned to Australia, where he died in 2017, aged 95.Episode photograph:  ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL AT ALDEBURGH, Jill Montgomery, Dudley Simpson, Avril Bergen, Susan Turnham, July 1961, (c) Royal Academy of Dance / ArenaPAL.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Darcey Bussell introduces this episode featuring the dancer Beryl Grey.Beryl Grey is in conversation with Frank Freeman, who sadly died in 2011, about her early training, first with Madeleine Sharp and then with Phyllis Bedells before going to the Sadler’s Wells School at the age of 10 in 1937. She joined the Sadler’s Wells Company when she was 14, and started performing leading ballerina roles almost straight away. She talks about this, and about touring during the war, before concluding with an account of the Company’s historic opening performance of Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden in 1946.Beryl Grey was born 1927 in Highgate, London and died in 2022. She began her ballet training at the age of four. At the age of 10, having passed all the Royal Academy of Dance examinations it was possible for her to take, she entered the Sadler’s Wells School. When she was 14, she joined the Sadler’s Wells Company, and almost immediately won leading roles. She danced a full Swan Lake on her fifteenth birthday and Giselle in 1944.In 1957, she resigned from the Royal Ballet, and embarked on a new international career as a guest ballerina, including appearances with the Royal Ballet and (London) Festival Ballet. In 1957-8 she was the first English dancer to be honoured as a guest artist in Leningrad, at the Bolshoi in Moscow and in Tiflis [Tbilisi] . In 1964 she became the first Western guest artist to feature with the Peking Ballet and the Shanghai Company.From 1968 - 1979 Beryl Grey was the Artistic Director of London Festival Ballet. She was President of English National Ballet, President of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Dance. Her many honours include five honorary doctorates and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the Royal Academy of Dance (in 1997). In 2016 she received the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. She was appointed C.B.E. in 1973, D.B.E. in 1988 and in 2017 was made a Companion of Honour (C.H) for services to dance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini talks about training under Marie Rambert, the post-war dance scene and touring Germany with ENSA in the immediate aftermath of WWII.At 92, Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini describes events and people from the 1940s, as if it was yesterday. She certainly does not dispel any myths about ‘Mim’ [Marie] Rambert’s powerful personality. Brenda talks candidly of her days at Cone Ripman School during the war, and of taking classes with Rambert herself in London, whom, for all her harshness, she admired. She joined Ballet Rambert and speaks of the devastation she witnessed on an ENSA tour of Germany straight after the war. Brenda also speaks of working with Walter Gore and Frank Staff. Hamyln-Bencini is remembered as a wonderful teacher and lifelong advocate and devotee of the Cecchetti method. The interview is introduced by the dance historian and curator Jane Pritchard.Brenda Hamlyn was born in London in 1925. She trained at the Cone Ripman School from 1934-41. She started taking classes with Marie Rambert in London, as a result of which she began working for Lunch Time Ballet in 1941. A short period with the Ballet Guild was followed by full membership of Ballet Rambert from 1943-8. During this time she toured extensively with Rambert, including an ENSA tour to Germany immediately after the war, and a tour to Australia and New Zealand in 1947-8. In 1948 she joined the Empire Ballet in Leicester Square, and began taking classes with [Vera] Volkova and [Stanislas]Idizikowski. In 1951 she went to Milan, and began dancing throughout Italy and other parts of Europe, including Salzburg and Cologne. In 1963 Brenda Hamlyn opened her own Scuola de Danza Hamlyn in Florence, qualifying shortly after as a Cecchetti teacher. She has since become internationally renowned as an expert on and practitioner in the Cecchetti Method. In 1987 she became a Cecchetti examiner and in 1989 President of the Cecchetti Society of Italy. On stepping down from directorship of her own school after 23 years, she continued to teach and lecture in many countries on the Cecchetti Method until well into the 1990s. In 1996 she won the Enrico Cecchetti Medal and, in 1998, the Premio Cecchetti.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.