Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo Review by Graham Finney
“I haven’t seen it before but I’ve heard it’s supposed to be a bit different,” says one woman in a rapidly filling crowd at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford where Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo are set to take the www. By the end of the ninety-minute show, it’s hard to disagree with what she’d been told.
An all-male comedy ballet troop originally based out of New York, Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo brought a bit of comedic sass to the Yorkshire town on Saturday night with their own interpretation of both the ballet classic “Swan Lake” and “Raymonda’s Wedding”. Now, for those of you who thought of ballet as one of the more serious of the arts, Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo or “The Trocks” are here to turn that misconception on it’s head.
Performing a mixture of traditional ballet routines and slapstick humour, The Trocks take familiar sections of Swan Lake and put a less serious twist on the famous tale. Less rigid than traditional ballet, the dance routines might be a bit rough around the edges at times technically but, as the Trocks don’t take themselves too seriously (and who could with names like Mini Van Driver and Vladimir Legupski), this doesn’t really detract from the overall performance. As for the slapstick routines, for the most part, they’re impeccably executed usually in the middle of one of the stories more dramatic sections.
As for the crowd, there is none of that stuffiness you would normally associate (and probably unfairly so) with a ballet crowd. In fact, judging by the laughter ringing out around this wonderfully ornate theatre, it would be a fair assumption to make that, not only do The Trocks have their own loyal following, but that for many in this audience, this isn’t the first time they have spent an evening in the company of the entertaining troop.
By the end of the night, the cast get a deserved standing ovation from the packed theatre as they take their final bows even managing to keep the laughs coming right until the final curtain call. If you’re not a ballet fan then you might struggle at times to work out what exactly is going on but, for those familiar with Tchaikovsky’s famous tale, The Trocks put on an entertaining night that, yes, could very much be described as “a bit different”.
For more information visit Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Official Website.
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