Birmingham
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Christmas Magic with The Nutcracker
Christmas really came to town in Birmingham on Friday with the opening night of The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s yuletide classic at the Birmingham Hippodrome. A full house for the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production showed that this evergreen classic shows no sign of losing its ability to enchant, with this particular production stunning in both dance and visually through the incredible sets. The Nutcracker tells the story of a wonderful family Christmas Eve, with the initial scenes dominated by a wonderful Christmas tree. This is a picture box Victorian Christmas scene, one that could’ve come from a Christmas card, or the top of a quality street tin, the tableaux is so vivid…
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Birmingham Royal Ballet Breathe life into Coppelia
The Birmingham Royal Ballet Autumn season concludes its Birmingham run this week with the opening at the Hippodrome of Sir Peter Wright’s Coppelia , directed by Carlos Acosta. I was at the press night last night and, once again, the BRB showed why they are one of the world’s greatest ballet company’s with a production that is grace and charm personified. The story of Coppelia is one full of humour and deception, featuring the aged old love triangle between a boy,a girl and a wooden doll. Of course, the village Lothario Franz doesn’t realise that the new object of his lust, the beautiful lady who sits on the balcony of…
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Birmingham Heritage Week – Celebrating Birmingham – The Brutiful Years
On Sunday I attended one of the events that made up part of this year’s Birmingham Heritage Week. Brutiful Birmingham have recently launched their first book, ‘Birmingham The Brutiful Years‘, a celebration of the Brutalist architecture that abounded upon the city in the 50s, 60s and 1970s, some of which is now protected, others which are still under threat of demolition and redevelopment. The book is a love letter to these buildings, seen as the exciting future at the time of conception, as innovative, space age and ultra modernist, but now having to fight for their right to be, as the age of glass boxes threatens to erode all that…