Article by:
Judith Mackrell
Ballet is all about illusion and when Peregrine, the cute pony in La Fille Mal Gardée, takes an unscheduled dump in the middle of act one you might expect it to be a disastrous intrusion of reality. But Frederick Ashton’s 1960 romantic comedy is such an idiosyncratic and indestructible mix of genres – English pantomime and pure pastoral classicism – that Peregrine’s accident only adds to the ballet’s charm. It is swiftly and wittily dealt with; and somehow it chimes with the free, fresh and spontaneous chemistry that’s already been created on stage, both by some fine ensemble playing and by the two young principals Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé.
As the illicit lovers Lise and Colas, Hayward and Sambé achieve a perfect balance of 21st-century naturalism and period style. Hayward’s Lise delivers a convincing edge of teenage, eye-rolling belligerence as she reacts against her mother’s strictness. And as she and Colas fall in love they imbue their material with a rare sense of mutual discovery, the pair trying on each new emotion for size as they progress from the sweet, hectic silliness of playacting, to snatched kisses and finally the shock and delight of desire.
Their acting is the more convincing because it comes pegged to the dancing of such unforced beauty. Hayward has already proved herself a natural interpreter ofAshton, skimmingly light and fast with a gorgeous sensitivity to the upper body grace notes, and with an amplitude of scale unusual in so tiny a ballerina. Her musicality is exceptional, too, and it feels even more so in Fille, where the melodiousness of her phrasing extends to the most deft of comic timing. Sambé is an equally gifted dancer: a bravura technician with a joyously wide jump and a mastery of turns, he devotes just as much care to the little steps, and to the stylistic quirks.
As a partner, he seems very occasionally inexperienced but his closing pas de deux with Hayward is heartbreaking in its dreamy, nestling tenderness. These two are a partnership to watch.
Log in with Google