Beauty and the Beast (tour – Norwich, Theatre Royal)

Master of ceremonies for all this is the sardonic Alfred, more than a mere manservant. With his stiffened coat tails and formalised gestures Darren Goldsmith looks every inch the part. If Orian’s friends are a bunch of self-serving courtiers, much the same can be said of Beauty’s two sisters and their hangers-on. Needless to say, these vanish sharply when the debt collectors follow close on the heels of Chantelle (Hannah Bateman) and Isabelle (Ayana Kanda)’s latest spending spree.

This scene is very funny with its enormous removal van and the sisters being stripped down to bra and panties. The calm centre is Beauty herself; Michela Paolacci is a lyrical dancer with an elegant line, shown to advantage in her pas de deux with Takahashi – who displays good elevation as some fine jumps. Most of the action happens in the first act with the second largely given over to set-piece dances which are kin to the divertissements which litter the majority of three-act ballets.

If Luminaire and Beauty have the most formal dances, the troll-like goblins which putter around the Beast’s lair and generally assist in the scene changes are a different sort of delight. John Pryce-Jones conducts the eclectic score which John Longstaff has sewn together from mainly French 19th and early 20th century music with a nice balance between the dancers’ needs and the composers’ original tempi.