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ENB has now reached Bristol with Nureyev's R & J, and I have to say that I concur with Helen about this production. The dancers have a very busy time, but (as Shakespeare almost wrote on another occasion) there is a great deal of sound and fury signifying not very much. The first act I did not enjoy at all. The music is chopped about, and obvious references in the score to the development of the drama are missed. At times it reminded me of one of those ice skating routines where you could change the music and it would work just as well. I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the off-beat stamping in one of the dances either. The music for the ballroom scene was played too slowly; whether this was intentional (because of the choreography) or just a matter of how it turned out last night, I don't know. Whatever the reason, the music which follows the famously strong 'Dance of the Knights' was absolutely leaden, and there was therefore no sense of celebration or exhilaration (perhaps the idea is that the ballroom is also haunted by death - why do the men have to start wielding hefty swords before plunging them into a sheet held at the back of the stage? Strange happenings at a ball - more like the dark goings-on typical of a male-only secret society).

The balcony scene pdd seems to misfire; there is a great deal of R and J chasing about, but they don't seem to be involved with each other. There are moments in the score when, through repetition of themes and more intense orchestration (put the violins up another octave, fill out the texture, etc,etc), Prokofiev makes this music sound incredibly passionate; the choreography just doesn't respond.

The second act is much tighter, though here again death pervades all; the dancing friar (I couldn't get that bit either, Helen) seems to need to use a skull as well as his bunch of herbs to conduct clandestine weddings. Overall, though, this is the most successful act, with the best choreography for the blokes in groups. Also, the fights leading to the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt are very effective (were they staged by someone not acknowledged?). At this point I have to say I hope that Gary Avis (who played Tybalt) is in ENB to stay.

The third act starts well enough, with a better pdd for R & J, but - with 7 scenes - it becomes so fragmented, and noisy scene changes don't help. Nureyev's attempt to stay close to Shakespeare falls apart when the going gets complicated. As the Bristol Evening Post reviewer put it, "without a good working knowledge of this classic tragic romance you would have been hard put to it to follow the twists and turns of the plot". (At one point, fairly early on, the little girl behind me whispered to her parents "where are we?" - "You may well ask", I thought). For the record, Friar John doesn't get mugged on the road to Mantua (as in this production); he can't take Friar Lawrence's letter to Romeo because of the plague.

As Helen has suggested, the production seems to be dominated by death and destruction; topping and tailing it with the cavorting quartet of bald dicers-with-death in their jock-straps said as much. The cart of corpses behaved itself till it was taken into the wings; there was then much off-stage creaking to dispose of it. Although the designs have many fine aspects, I found the brick wall efect in the wings to add to the gloominess; this reminded me more of the nether regions of certain London railway stations than Renaissance Italy.

The ENB orchestra, has I think, improved in recent years in general (it needed to), but again I would agree with our local reporter that the playing was efficient rather than memorable. I had a good view of the orchestra, and enjoyed watching the violinists doubling as mandolin players (having a fine old time, they were). However, Anthony Twiner's direction is of the undemonstrative school of conducting. Of course, it is essential in the theatre to hold stage and pit together, and for that clarity is a first requirement. But there didn't seem to be much involvement with the music. So, for instance, if the horns wanted to have a ball, they did; in fact the brass in general took every opportunity for having a good blow.

I would agree with the headline in the Bristol Evening Post: "A lukewarm love affair". There's more thought put into the bawdy humour (complete with intentional and unintentional groping) than there is into the love affair at the centre of the play - it just doesn't ignite.

This company has some strong performers, so my sympathies are with the dancers who have such a hefty evening; later in the year they are back here with more than a week of Nutcracker...........(we are not even allowed two nights of a refreshing triple to cleanse our palates before sweetie-time).At least I can get a train ticket to London and escape such restricted rep.