Review: London Children’s Ballet’s The Secret Garden
Graham Watts sees The Secret Garden, this year’s production from the London Children’s Ballet
| Title | The Secret Garden |
| Company | London Children’s Ballet |
| Venue | The Peacock Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, London |
| Date | 4 July 2024 |
| Reviewer | Graham Watts |
The poster outside the Peacock Theatre contained this quote from one of my past reviews: ‘I never cease to be amazed at the professionalism and quality of this company‘. The sentence could have been a hostage to fortune but thankfully it was an assertion that once again proved to be the case with this second revival of Érico Montes’ production of The Secret Garden.
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novels have been fertile sources for the London Children’s Ballet’s annual showcase with all three of her major works being turned into LCB ballets: A Little Princess has enjoyed three iterations and Little Lord Fauntleroy just one (so far). The Secret Garden leads the way with this being the fourth run, although the first edition (in 2007) was choreographed by Christine Sundt to an original score by Artem Vassiliev, which has been retained by Montes.
One of the special delights of the annual LCB production is the presence of a bespoke orchestra, once again under the direction of Philip Hesketh who has been the company’s Music Director for 26 years. The original set and costume designs by (respectively) Neil Irish and Eva Le Blanc have also survived, albeit updated and refreshed by Carrie-Ann Stein.
This annual LCB production is now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and in addition to providing a memorable performance experience for fifty children (aged 9 to 15), it also gives valuable experience that allows adults to develop their skills in management, design, lighting, music and choreography. What we see on the stage is the outcome of many thousands of hours’ work behind the scenes. Not everyone stays in the creative arts (Le Blanc now works in corporate banking) but LCB has become an important rite of passage for many emerging choreographers, composers and designers.
When Montes created his choreography for The Secret Garden (in 2013) he was still a dancer at The Royal Ballet, having made short pieces for the company’s First Drafts programme and also for New English Ballet Theatre before becoming the 17th emerging choreographer to cut his teeth on a first full-length narrative ballet with the LCB (that number has now risen to 20). Montes is now Ballet Master at Le Ballet de l’Opéra national du Capitole, in Toulouse (the staging of this revival of The Secret Garden was largely overseen by Gemma Pitchley-Gale, the original rehearsal director from 2013). As I have said before, the LCB is not just an inspirational training ground for children.
The Secret Garden is a complex tale with a large cast and a setting that ranges from Colonial India to a manor house in Yorkshire, telling the story in 18 tightly knit scenes, although anyone unfamiliar with Burnett’s novel will need to have prepped by reading the excellent programme synopsis. Inevitably, with such a large cast, the stage sometimes seemed cluttered and one often sensed young dancers having to carefully avoid bumping into each other!
Vassiliev’s descriptive score provides a thematic background to both the exotic influences of Colonial India and the “wuthering wind” of the Yorkshire moors, while also giving detail to the filigree lightness of butterflies and the rustic comedy of the gardeners. Montes has accentuated his classical choreographic language with heavy doses of mime, humour and dramatic intent. To help the children in the audience, some key aspects of mime were explained in a front-of-curtain prelude.
Burnett’s story tells of a young girl who is orphaned by a cholera epidemic in India and is shipped back to Yorkshire to live with her uncle (Mr Craven) who mourns the death of his wife after falling from a swing in his walled garden (an episode shown in flashback), which he then locks up for good, leading to a journey to reopening the garden and ending Mr Craven’s loneliness.
The lead role of Mary Lennox is central to the plot, not least because the character is hardly ever offstage. 12-year-old Constance Rauly gave a mature performance beyond her years, declaring every narrative intent through movement, mime, and expression with great clarity. Toby Gray’s performance as the grumpy head gardener, Ben Weatherstaff (complete with beard and never without his spade) was the comedic highlight; Blandine Ploquin gave a sympathetic account of the kindly maid, Martha; Joshua Moisey was suitably adventurous as Martha’s brother, Dickon, a boy who loves the outdoors life and helps Mary access the hidden garden: and 14-year-old Jude Illing was an imposing Mr Craven. In the first act, 11-year-old Yuno Sato performed a delightful solo as a character identified as the Palace Entertainer.
So many LCB alumni have gone on to careers in the business (notable among them, Anna Rose O’Sullivan, a principal at The Royal Ballet and an LCB Patron alongside her colleagues Steven McRae and Lauren Cuthbertson, both of whom spoke onstage prior to the second act). I hope that Yuno, Constance and others in this excellent cast can also use this inspirational experience to spur them on to further their dreams in dance. I have mentioned just a few of the 50 dancers but they should all be justifiably proud of taking part in such a professional and thoroughly entertaining show. Whether they become principals in a ballet company or corporate bankers, this memorable experience should serve them well.
Graham Watts is a freelance writer and dance critic. He writes for The Spectator, Tanz, Shinshokan Dance Magazine (Japan), Ballet Magazine (Romania), BachTrack and the Hong Kong International Arts Festival and has previously written for the Sunday Express, Dancing Times, Dance Europe, DanceTabs, London Dance, the Edinburgh International Festival and Pointe magazine (USA). He has also written the biography of Daria Klimentová (The Agony and the Ecstasy) and contributed chapters about the work of Akram Khan to the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet and on Shobana Jeyasingh for the third edition of Routledge’s Fifty Contemporary Choreographers.
He is Chairman of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle and of the UK National Dance Awards and regularly lectures on dance writing and criticism at The Royal Academy of Dance, The Place and (until the war) for Balletristic in Kyiv. He was a nominee for the Dance Writing Award in the 2018 One Dance UK Awards and was appointed OBE in 2008.
