Ballet Shoes, Olivier Theatre review - reimagined classic with a lively contemporary feel

Those with treasured battered copies of Noel Streatfield’s 1936 story of three young adopted sisters in pre-war London may have thrilled to the idea of a version coming to the National Theatre. But be warned: jolly though it is, it’s not the story of stagestruck pre-war Londoners you know.

The bare bones of the book are still visible. Three little babies, brought to London from various points of the globe by a fossil-collecting explorer, Great Uncle Matthew (aka Gum), are left with his late niece’s orphaned daughter, Sylvia, and her nurse, Nana. The youngest, Posy, whose mother had been a ballerina, shows special talent as a dancer, while Pauline, the eldest, is a gifted actress. Petrova reluctantly goes to dance classes too, though she is dead set on becoming an aviator and loves repairing cars. We follow them as they cope with Gum’s prolonged absence and the impact of encroaching poverty on their lives. 

Kendall Feaver has recast the piece through a modern lens, even if the setting and costuming look more or less Thirties-style, down to the black Bakelite phone handset (which the book’s residence could not afford). This contemporary reworking means the platinum blonde locks and blue eyes of little Pauline (Grace Saif) have gone, Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez) is no longer a sallow Russian, and the ginger curls of Posy (Daisy Sequerra) have been muted. She has also been moved forward in age, closer to the other two, her cheeky wilfulness transferred to Pauline. The young Fossils (they have chosen the surname themselves) could not have been played off the page with any accuracy anyway, as the book covers 16 years of the household’s existence.

So we get a fine contemporary cast in a quasi-period piece, and for the most part this approach works. The script’s snappy repartee and one-liners — Nana (Jenny Galloway) is a particularly gifted source, dry and laconic, as is Pauline — will appeal to the adults in the audience too, and there is a nice line in slapstick and physical comedy. The girls’ more innocent imaginings aren’t lost. Even while played by significantly older women, their jejune mix of ambition and idealism still lands, while the feminist sentiments of the original, with the trio annually vowing to put Fossils in the history books, have inevitably been fortified.

The new modern lens has altered the lineup of older-times lodgers Sylvia (Pearl Mackie) is obliged to take in. The book's expat rubber trader and his wife have become a single Asian mechanic, Jai (Sid Sagar, pictured above with Pearl Mackie); the two kindly older women academics (with separate rooms) are now one peppery doctor of literature (Helena Lymbery), left with nothing when her partner died, who admits to being a lesbian to Nana; Sylvia — “Garnie”, toddler Posy’s attempt at saying ”guardian” — has become a painter manquée with a love life; dance teacher Miss Dane (Nadine Higgin) is now Theo, a slinky Black hoofer; and ballet impresario Manioff is a woman.

Those who miss the slightly waspish but awfully nice (think the young Joyce Grenfell) narrator of the book have much to savour in her place. The play's stage picture is fascinating. Frankie Bradshaw’s set turns the cavernous Olivier into a more intimate space towered over by boxes of Gum’s finds, with a mezzanine halfway up the back wall as a handy extra performing space. This leaves the floor empty for the dance routines and the lively mobile props — full-length mirrors, doors, furniture, a vintage car — doing a dance of their own as they weave in and out of the action. 

Director Katy Rudd keeps the feel of the piece bold and inventive. It’s the kind of production where Gum’s shipwreck is recreated in the blink of an eye with sheets and poles; later, he has two fingers and half a leg amputated in plain sight. And when Petrova goes on a frantic drive through central London, performers holding trees and lamp-posts rush chaotically past to indicate her careening speed. A brilliant sequence just using lighting and dry ice shows the house’s wiring and plumbing falling apart — the beautiful lighting is by Paule Constable, who also creates a neon-ringed hole that looms out of total darkness for the White Rabbit to jump through, in an Alice In Wonderland Pauline is involved in. Stage magic.

Feaver naturally sneaks in more actual dancing than Streatfeild could include. Ellen Kane provides several big ensemble routines that seem to be channelling the as-yet-unborn Bob Fosse, larky and exuberant. A seasoned ballerina (Xolisweh Ana Richards) makes a winning appearance, first projected onto a mirror, then emerging from it to perform for dance academy director “Madame” (multirole-ing Justin Salinger, who also plays Gum with great gusto). Especially good is the “futuristic ballet” (pictured below) in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Pauiine and Petrova appear in, featuring clever metal-effect pop-art costuming and “mechanised” moves. This section also gives Petrova her first shot at flying (pictured above), an exhilarating moment for both performer and audience.

My favourite moments, though, involved unlikely dance moments — Sagar as the lanky Jai doing a wonderful parody of an Astaire-ish tango, and Richards’s excellent Theo ending the show with a sexy cabaret number. Almost as good was seeing the National’s outgoing director, Rufus Norris, being coached on opening night by one of the squad of dancers in green going through the audience before the start. Lovely port de bras. 

This is a treat for wannabe bunheads that their parents will find themselves giggling along with, while noting that its key message is that girls have career ambitions that will stretch the family’s purse strings, and sometimes its patience. But they probably knew that already.

Ballet Shoes at the NT Olivier in repertory until 22 February, 2025

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