MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
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Family-friendly fun with this beast of a tale
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Beauty and the Beast
Leeds Grand Theatre
4/5
IT’S become something of a tradition for Northern Ballet to stage a production at The Grand over the Christmas period and, while there may be nothing intrinsically festive about Beauty And The Beast, choreographer David Nixon’s adaptation has plenty of fun with the fairytale’s moral about material goods not bringing happiness.
Beauty’s two sisters — socialites who flounce around in costumes that frequently resemble gaudy sweet wrappers — could have stepped right out of Clueless, while the bailiffs quite literally take the clothes off their backs in a ballet-theatre scene that shows the company at its comic best.
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