Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Ballet dancer who trained at Sadler's Wells Ballet School (now the Royal Ballet School) and performed professionally from childhood.
On the island
Eight records
The eight records for this collection haven’t been catalogued yet.
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08Whereabouts do you come from?
Beverley, in East Yorkshire.
Presenter asks
0:12As a child, did you [see dancing] a lot?
No, none whatsoever, 'cause it was the war was on and uh… No, I didn't ever see dancing until I was just about to come to London.
Presenter asks
0:52Whose idea was it that you should try for a place at the Saddles Wells Ballet School, or the Royal Ballet School as it is now?
Well, we took examinations for the Royal Academy of Dancing at our local school. And after grade three, which I passed with honours, [the] examiner suggested to my teacher that perhaps I should be sent to London to be looked at by Dame Ninette de Valois, who had just newly formed both an educational and a dancing school.
Presenter asks
1:23How old [were you]?
Nine and a half.
Presenter asks
2:02How was the day split up [at school]?
We started with one hour's class, from about nine till ten o'clock. Dancing class. And then we had a break. And then the rest of the day were the usual academic subjects. Music as well, we all played the recorder. I tried to.
Presenter asks
2:37When you leave the school at sixteen or seventeen, having passed your GCE and providing you haven't become the wrong shape, is there any guarantee that the company is going to take you?
No, none whatsoever. Some years they'll take ten people, some years two.
Presenter asks
3:05That [joining the company] must have been a very big day in your life.
It was indeed a big day, and was made even bigger by the fact that we went straight off to New York and across to the west coast of America.
“No, none whatsoever. Some years they'll take ten people, some years two.”
“Dame Ninette de Valois gave me the great honour of dancing certainly to me one of the most glamorous of the male roles, that of the bluebird in Act Three, The Sleeping Beauty.”
“I think the company was undoubtedly at its high standard… one actually danced on the same stage that all the famous Karsavinas, Nijinskis, Pavlovas, all those people came from.”
“I think it is really physically very, very exacting. There's several hours class every [day]… and then of course when everyone's coming home to watch television, you're usually heading for the most important part of your day which is the performance.”
“I think once you've danced at the Opera House and supposedly been a success, the Metropolitan Opera House and the Marinsky, which is the greatest of all to me, and have been a success, I don't think there's anywhere else really one can go.”