Birmingham Royal Ballet - La Fille mal gardee - Review

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Wed 25 Sep 2024 - Sat 28 Sep 2024

Dance is the perfect medium for expressing all kinds of emotions from love to hate and joy to despair but also comedy. And Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardee is one of the classic comic operas which has remained popular for more than 60 years.

The ballet focuses on more of a love pentangle than a triangle - there are young lovers Lise and Colas who want to be together, Colas' wealthier rival Alain and then there’s Lise’s mother and Alain’s father who are determined to secure the future of their children through marriage.

And so while the adults are busy making deals and agreeing on wedding details, the young lovers do all in their power to scotch their plans, sneaking kisses, making pledges and hatching their own plots.



It’s a classic comedy set-up and allows for plenty of humour not least from the caricatures of the ‘baddies’. By heaping on the comedy these characters become as much-loved as the young lovers and we can forgive their machinations.

That comedy is epitomized in Rory Mackay’s Widow Simone who tries everything to keep her daughter on the straight and narrow. With an over-large bottom, mop cap and curls, Mackay sashays around the stage, fussing and fluttering as she tries to discipline Lise.

There is a real warmth and humour to the Widow who also likes to be part of the gang so one moment she is chastising her daughter and the next she is picking up her skirts to lead the villagers in a spirited clog dance.

Ultimately you know Widow Simone is doing what she believes is best for her daughter and, in true love conquers all tradition, she will eventually cede to her daughter’s wishes.

And Beatrice Parma's Lise certainly puts up a fight, doing everything in her power to thwart her mum’s plans. She brazenly flirts with Colas right under the eye of Alain and his father, she attempts to steal the keys when her mum locks her in and she stands up to her mother with a good deal of pouting and posturing.

It is easy to see why she has lost her heart to Enrique Bejarano Vidal's Colas who is equally cheeky, sneaking into Widow Simone's yard and home to see his lover and snatching moments with her even when she is supposed to be with Alain.

Gus Payne’s Alain is the direct opposite of Colas. He is clumsy, foolish and we don’t believe for a moment he has lost his heart to Lise, in fact, he spends as much time eying up other village girls as Lise.



Ashton’s choreography is notoriously complex, demanding a great deal of strength and exactitude from the dancers and yet all of the leads seem to perform the steps with apparent ease, giving them space to create those fully-rounded characters.

So too the demands on the rest of the company are immense with some of the intricate village dances calling on fine footwork and expert coordination. The work also provides a handful of other opportunities for some great roles not least for the strutting Cockerell danced by August Generalli and his Chickens.

Ashton chose Ferdinand Herold’s score with an adaptation by John Lanchbery and the music is beautiful, brilliantly played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Wolfgang Heinz.

Ultimately La Fille mal gardee is a great feel-good ballet performed with plenty of gusto and character by Birmingham Royal Ballet. Playing Birmingham Hippodrome until 28 September see here for more information and tickets.

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