English National Ballet and English National Ballet School have, in recent years, developed an interesting way of offering a real experience of classical ballet to children as young as three. Students from ENBS dance an abridged version of an ENB show – carefully choreographed for young dancers by George Williamson with Dramaturgy by Adam Peck. A narrator – in this case Saskia Portway – is woven into the action to make the story absolutely clear to the audience. Having opened at Peacock Theatre in London, My First Sleeping Beauty tours until the end of May. It provides valuable experience for young performers at the very beginning of their careers and lots of opportunities for families to experience ballet, possibly for the first time.

Tchaikovsky’s lush melodious score is well enough played by City of Prague Philharmonic conducted by Gavin Sutherland and Daryl Griffith although it must be much harder to dance in sync when you’re working to a recording without a conductor to watch – and some of the cuts are a bit abrupt. The young dancers do well in general although their youth shows occasionally in a strained wobble or two. Especially enjoyable are the set pieces by the benign fairies in the first act, the prince’s show piece dance in the enchanted wood and the series of dances by the fairy tale characters with a particularly witty contribution by two dancers as a pair of cats. And at the end Aurora and the Prince are suitably appealing and impressive in their final romantic pas de deux. The company of 25 – ENBS students are recruited from all over the world – rotate the principal and corps de ballet roles and no one is named in the programme other than as a member of the ensemble.

I have, as with previous shows in this series, some reservations about the narration. Saskia Portway, who co-wrote her own script, plays the older Aurora looking back on her youth sometimes wandering through the action and sometimes standing to the side. Her voice is warm although it sometimes strays dangerously close to the sanctimonious sugariness of Vanessa Redgrave in the TV series Call the Midwife. Moreover she struggles to be heard when the music is rising to one of Tchaikovsky’s magnificent dramatic crescendi. It is more effective at quieter moments when she speaks in rhythm with the music. Why though, at points when the dance makes it completely clear what is happening do we need words at all? When the Queen is counting, for example, it really doesn’t need to be spelt out by a narrator.

On the whole, though, the “My First” concept works. I saw My First Sleeping Beauty with hundreds of children and almost every one of them was totally engrossed for the full 90 minutes and that’s a terrific achievement for cast and creators. I regret though that the vast majority of them are little girls. Why on earth don’t people take boys to ballet as well?

Susan Elkin