Northern Ballet have an excellent reputation when it comes to adapting literary classics for the stage. As such, the storytelling in their new version of Aesop’s Tortoise And The Hare is as crystal clear and vibrant as you would expect. Choreographers Dreda Blow and Sebastian Loe weave traditional ballet movements into character-building gestures, without dampening their brilliance: there are leaping jetés from Hare as he warms up, flittering fouettés from a busy bee, and a graceful en pointe butterfly. The tale is simple enough to be summed up in a sentence, so Blow and Loe’s challenge is to eke out each character’s intentions into long, descriptive motions, making sure even the very littlest audience members are keeping up.

In this the production excels, giving us simple passages of dance that show the characters’ thoughts and emotions (Hare arrogantly kissing his trophies, or cruelly mocking Tortoise’s slowness), as well as solos and duets that break up the action. Two cheerleader bunnies jostle for our attention in a dance-off with pom pom carrots; an elegant butterfly drifts around a flower and an acorn-hoarding squirrel tries to distract competitors from the course.
The only issue with these interludes (which is perhaps part of a wider problem with ballet) is that they lean towards an underlying subtle narrative of gender traditions, which shows women as pretty, decorative and light-footed, while the men are strong and sporty. You feel that it would have been quite easy to substitute a male butterfly or cast a jaunty squirrel-woman. Young kids are sponges when it comes to absorbing unconscious biases and these things do matter. Nevertheless, wonderful live performances of Bruno Merz’s woodlandy, evocative score, along with stunning, colour-soaked design from Ali Allen, not to mention energetic performances from the cast, make a winning formula for introducing children to both ballet and Aesop’s tale.
Northern Ballet: Tortoise And The Hare reviewed at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh.