Voices of British Ballet’s new podcast and platform to celebrate the history of dance in Britain

Tuesday 25 March 2025 sees the launch of Voices of British Ballet, the oral history project that began in 2002 and now will be available via a new website hosting the growing collection of podcasts made from the vast library of Voices of British Ballet interviews.

The project – a registered charity founded by Patricia Linton in 2002 – aims to record interviews with many of those who have been instrumental in developing British ballet in the 20th Century and beyond. Aimed at ballet lovers and accessible to all, the platform is a valuable tool for students and academics of history and dance.

“There is nothing like dance to salve, solve and stimulate – and ballet is one of its jewels,” says Linton. “My aim with Voices of British Ballet is to give voice to the experience of people who’ve played a role in British Ballet, whether on stage, front of house or backstage, and whether their involvement has been a brush up against it or a lifetime within it.”

[Tomorrow, we publish an interview with Patricia Linton by Jonathan Gray.]

Linton was a dancer with The Royal Ballet, ballet teacher at The Royal Ballet School and lecturer in Ballet History at Central School of Ballet, and was determined that the experiences of the people who contributed to the growth and success of British dance should not be forgotten. She began to record their stories herself, and later brought in a team of journalists, dancers and historians. She has built a remarkable oral history collection of over 500 interviews and discussions.

Now, in a collaboration with audio producer Natalie Steed, Voices of British Ballet is launching a weekly podcast which will bring some of the highlights of these stories to listeners and will include introductions to set these stories in context. Steed says, “Voices of British Ballet is a goldmine of wonderful stories that offers an unparalleled glimpse into the creative process as well as chance to hear eye-witness accounts of creating, performing and touring in a world just beginning to slip from living memory. It has been a joy to eavesdrop on and edit these conversations.”

Linton adds, “Voices of British Ballet is a treasure trove of diverse and inspiring stories, filled with humour, heartbreak and determination. Their testimony explores what it is to be a dancer, the highs and lows, and what it is to work in a field that is at once utterly collaborative – bringing together music, visual and literary arts – and uniquely dependent on a dancer’s tenacity and talent. What I’ve loved most about building this archive is what these voices teach us, and will continue to teach us. Ballet is critical to British artistic life – it connects so many disciplines and passions, and it brings together the most extraordinary people and talents.”

The first six podcasts, to be released on the 25^th, are listed below and over the coming year interviewees include Richard Alston (dancer, choreographer and director), Bryony Brind (dancer), Christopher Bruce (dancer, choreographer and director), Darcey Bussell (dancer), Mary Clarke (writer, editor and critic), Clement Crisp (writer and critic), Henry Danton (dancer and teacher), Anthony Dowell (dancer and director), Violetta Elvin (dancer and director), Julia Farron (dancer and teacher), Rowenna Fayre (dancer), Alexander Grant (dancer and director), Marcia Haydée (dancer, director and choreographer), Joseph Horowitz (composer), Rowena Jackson and Philip Chatfield (dancers and teachers), Pamela May (dancer and teacher), Jock McFadyen (artist), Lesley McKracken (stage manager), Yvonne Minton (singer), Keith Money (photographer), Thea Musgrave (composer), Cassa Pancho (dancer, director and choreographer), Dianne Richards (dancer), Kevin Richmond (dancer and teacher), Alfreda Thorogood (dancer, teacher and director), John Tooley (general administrator of the Royal Opera House), and Peter Wright (dancer, director, choreographer, teacher), : Lynn Seymour, David Wall, Beryl Grey, Siobhan Davies (dancers); John Craxton (artist and designer); Gillian Lynne (dancer and choreographer), Dudley Simpson (composer and conductor), James Macmillan (composer) and Lilian Hochhauser (impresario).

There will also be a Round Table discussion on the birth of London Festival Ballet, a collection of podcasts from a Western Theatre Ballet reunion and the first of five hour-long specials with Monica Mason (dancer and director).

The podcast is supported by a website, voicesofbritishballet.com, where additional material about each interviewee can be found, including photographs, biographies, background material and a transcript of the edited interview.

Ep 1. Monica Ratcliffe: One of Voices of British ballet’s earliest voices, Monica Ratcliffe talks about her years at Dame Ninette de Valois‘ Academy of Choreographic Art in the 1920s, before the forming of the Vic-Wells Ballet, as well as her encounters with Lilian Baylis, Lydia Lopokova, Olga Spessivtseva and many more.

Ep 2. Mark Morris: American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers. He talks frankly about the role of improvisation in choreography, egalitarianism in dance, his experiences with international dance forms other than ballet and his particular affection for British dance.

Ep 3. Wendy Toye: Introduced by the dancer and choreographer Adam Cooper, Wendy Toye begins with a memory of chatting with Serge Diaghilev at the age of nine, giving her opinion of L’Après-midi d’un faune. From the age of five she performed in Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall and, at nine, she won the inaugural European Charleston Competition in 1926. Aged 14 she became a member of the Vic-Wells Ballet, while dancing commercially as well. Her career, in the 1930s and subsequently, involved films, shows, cabaret and television, as well as ballet, opera and choreography.

Ep 4. Christopher Wheeldon: Introduced by Darcey Bussell. Christopher Wheeldon talks in 2003 with his former classmate and Royal Ballet First Soloist Jane Burn.

Ep 5: After Diaghilev: The dance critic Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet principal dancer and director), Jane Pritchard (curator of dance, theatre and performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum), and Judith Mackrell (former dance critic at The Guardian, and author of Bloomsbury Ballerina, a biography of Lydia Lopokova). Together, they explore the ballet scene in London at the beginning of the 1920s, the impact of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on that scene. The Sleeping Princess, Diaghilev’s 1921 production of Marius Petipa’s ballet was described by critics at the time as a “gorgeous calamity”. Our guests examine its impact on the appetite for dance in Britain in succeeding years and set out what happened to ballet in the UK after Diaghilev’s death in 1929.

Ep 6. Antoinette Sibley: Antoinette Sibley talks with dance critic Alastair Macaulay. She discusses her early aspirations, working with Frederick Ashton and her career-defining partnership with Anthony Dowell.

There will also be a Round Table discussion on the birth of London Festival Ballet, a collection of podcasts from a Western Theatre Ballet reunion and the first of five hour-long specials with Monica Mason (dancer and director).

Gramilano Editor

Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.