‘Dowell’ in InterViews/News ‘Dowell’ in all InterViews/News all RB reviews

This documentary on BBC Knowledge last night turned out to be a gem. As suspected, it was mostly archive material threaded on a long, interesting though somewhat over-reverential interview of Dowell by Judith Mackrell. Every question was asked with a plastered-on smile and her most challenging question seemed to be 'did you ever wish you were a ballerina?' (Answer: Yes, sometimes, because it would have been wonderful to have been lifted instead of always having to do the lifting).

The archive material was gripping; interviews with Ashton, Macmillan and Tudor speaking admiringly of Dowell and above all, clips of the young Dowell dancing. If anything showed up his dazzling talent I think it was the fast and furious solo from Ashton's 'Enigma Variations', which left me breathless just watching. But elsewhere, the purity and clarity of his dancing was both inspiring and moving. Of note was the beautiful slow variation by the Prince in 'Sleeping Beauty' which may have been part of the original Petipa/Ivanov choreography but which looked very Ashtonian to me. Does anyone know? Whatever, Dowell's dancing in the piece was so perfect and so calmly controlled that it moved me almost to tears.

Antoinette Sibley was interviewed at length and told a delicious story about 'Thais', the pdd created for her and Dowell by Ashton. Incredibly, they only had three rehearsals before going on stage with it, but it got such a tremendous reception that Sir Fred went on on stage and asked the audience 'Would you like to see them do it again?'. Dowell and Sibley were aghast at hearing this. 'We could have killed him' Sibley recalled 'We had to go on and do the whole bloody thing again'.

BBC Knowledge will repeat the programme on Sunday 27th May and I think there will be at least one other repeat after that.