Brilliant ballet production a fling of beauty

BALLET heroes are supposed to be gods and princes, perfect creatures in pristine white blouses.

Glasgow welders need not apply – until people like Matthew Bourne said ‘Nope – ballet is about us’ and set about making clever, larky productions with the occasional head-butt.

Highland Fling is his take on the oldest major ballet of them all, La Sylphide, originally a twee, dancy drama about Scotland created in the 1830s. Out goes all roaming in the gloaming, and in comes a tutu-free, kilt-filled stag night in Glasgow where an unemployed welder encounters a wild-eyed sooty sprite, who is the opposite of his neat prim bride-to-be.

Despite themselves, they are drawn into a love affair that’s both funny and dangerous.

All Scottish life is here, from sword dancing to Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night, brilliantly realised by Scottish Ballet with Christopher Harrison, as the bedazzled James, and Sophie Martin, as a sylph with a touch of the Peter Pan and maybe Edward Scissorhands.

I caught a performance in Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre.

However, our national ballet company is about to hurl its gallus spirit further afield by taking a full-scale production to town halls and sport centres in Lerwick, Kirkwall, Oban and Stornoway.

Audiences are in for a treat. It’s a fling that sings.