Classic tale lacks magic

‘Beauty and the Beast’, Lowry, Salford
Birmingham Royal Ballet calls on such a pool of dance and production talent, from director and choreographer David Bintley down, that rarely does one of the company’s shows fail to please.

This time the work pleases, but fails to go that extra step towards delight.

This Bintley work from 2003 rode the wave of interest created by Disney’s movie and stage show of the same name.

Salford gets it this week for the second time (the last time eight years ago), a sumptuous event tricked out by designer Philip Prowse in dark shadows and designer-ragged costumes of bright golds, a rich mixture of shadows and spotlights, mist and mystery.

Candles pick out the massive sets in the darkness, all of which are smoothly moved in and out without pause or interference with the action. The whole thing is wonderfully atmospheric.

Offering much of the basic story known to Disney fans, the ballet relates how the beast was created by a woodsman wizard and how Belle’s father comes to send her to him.

The second half opens on a richly-choreographed ball for Belle and the woodland court, then follows as Belle leaves him, returning before he dies. All, of course, live happily ever after.

The evening is, for ballet, fairly short at around two hours — no doubt designed to cater for the expected children’s audience.

But it pleases rather than delights because, like the story, this version fails somehow to reach any audience in particular.

It’s a little gloomy for children; a little passionless for adults. The Disney version was packed with cute characters and magic tricks to make it zing, and zing it did.

The dancing is entertaining without being very passionate and the music, by Canadian Glenn Buhr, likewise.

Even at this relatively short length the story is slightly extended, though particularly in the second half, Bintley beautifully juxtaposes the romantic “animal” duets of Belle and the Beast with the comically boorish dancing going on back home among Belle’s father and “ugly” sisters and their relatives and friends.

The dancing is, as you might expect, charming. Elisha Willis was a charming first-night Belle, Robert Parker a suitably tormented beast with a clearly romantic soul under all that fur. But Bintley should have sat down with the ballet and given it a good roaring to at some point.