Review: La Fille mal gardée, Hippodrome

All you really have to know about this ballet is that every review says it’s utterly charming and delightful. They’re right, it is.

The literal translation of the title is The Wayward Daughter or The Poorly Guarded Girl – but a modern interpretation might be The Naughty Teenager.

The story is said to have been inspired by a painting showing a girl in tears with her clothes in disarray, being told off by her mother while her lover scurries off to the safety of a nearby hayloft (which gives you some idea of what sort of naughty she’s been).

The ballet is a little more three-dimensional – but not much. Lise (danced by the utterly charming Céline Gittens) has to choose between riches and love. The love comes in the form of the penniless but handsome farmhand Colas, danced by Tyrone Singleton (delightful) and the riches in Alain, performed by James Barton as a comic theatrical ‘fool’ – with a nod to Chico Marx – who’s playing it for full-on laughs (and is a good enough dancer to make it look as though he’s a bad one).

The result is never really in doubt, of course, but Lise’s pantomime dame of a mum, Widow Simone (performed by Rory Mackay) insists on sticking her nose in – and a battle royal ensues between mother and daughter.

Lise begins as an innocent if flirtatious girl, but by the time the evening is over she has become a woman, more than a little afraid of the level of passion she has begun to feel for Colas. There are numerous symbols of fertility scattered throughout the piece: a cockerel (danced wonderfully by Kit Holder), maypoles, one-handed lifts (I mean, honestly, what’s that all about in ballet speak?) and Morris dancing (no, I’m not sure about that last one either – but I’m told it’s a rite of spring to do with the rising sap).

There have been many productions of La Fille mal gardée throughout history, but this Birmingham Royal Ballet version is based on Frederick Ashton’s choreography for the Royal Ballet in 1960. It was inspired by Ashton’s love of the English countryside. He conjures up an idyllic pastoral, indeed bucolic, vision.

Ashton unapologetically gave himself the best part. Eyewitness accounts of his Widow Simone’s clog dance – probably the ballet’s most famous sequence – say it was hilarious. It’s still excellent in this production: a moment when the usually uptight mum gets carried away and lets her hair down, and a highlight of the night that always brings the house down.

There are some other lovely sequences, including when Lise mimes what her life will be like when she marries Colas: here are their children, one, two, three (delightful) and the arrival on stage of a pure white miniature pony – traditionally named Peregrine but oddly uncredited in this production’s cast list – which had the Hippodrome audience dutifully aaahh-ing.

And then there’s the splendid music performed by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (utterly charming).

Sadly, and very undeservedly, this opening night’s audience was rather thin on the ground – but those who were there did their best to cheer the cast to the rafters. The only good thing about that is that tickets might still be available for the rest of the run – and you should do everything possible to get some.

La Fille mal gardée continues at the Hippodrome until Saturday. July 17. For more information and tickets, visit www.atgtickets.com/shows/la-fille-mal-gardee/bristol-hippodrome