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Marriott has set his ballet on three principals, with a dozen other dancers given greater or less prominence. It's a plotless work, driven by the Violin Concerto of Ned Rorem - new to most of the audience, I'd guess, and not the most seductively danceable of scores at a first hearing. At present, Marriott's gift for inventing striking and attractive poses, or movement for individuals and small groups, looks greater than his ability to handle a whole stageful of dancers - hardly surprising in a first attempt, but making the more intimate sections of the ballet more convincing than the finale. And of course he's a child of the house, and there are echoes in his work of the great choreographers who have shaped the company - could it be otherwise? It's always interesting to see which of his colleagues a company choreographer uses, and how he sees them. In this case he's exploited Leanne Benjamin's familiar speed and precision without showing us anything particularly new, but has given Darcey Bussell a rather unexpected role as the odd one out - no big pas de deux, no luscious exploitation of her long legs, and the ballet ends with her running alone through the rest of the cast as they hold their final positions. She doesn't yet look entirely at ease like this, and it would be good to see her relax into it and show us a new side of her personality. I very much liked Adam Wiltshire's glowing backcloths and plain but elegant costumes. In short, it's a watchable, competent addition to the repertoire, and one that I'd be happy to see again,

In a rather strangely planned programme, Tanglewood was preceded by a performance of Ashton's La Valse, with Marianela Nunez swooping extravagantly through the central role, and followed by two pieces by Kenneth MacMillan. My Brother My Sisters and Gloria had their Covent Garden premieres within a few weeks of each other in 1980, but the first of them was originally made for the Stuttgart company a couple of years earlier, and like other works with the same provenance it has always seemed to me pure, and fully achieved, MacMillan - something he made for no other reason than that he wanted to, and with none of the constraints of working with the Royal Ballet. I don't think it's a piece anyone would claim to 'like', but in the past I've found it much more rewarding than some of his better known ballets. The Royal Ballet's last revival, in 1999, was less successful than its earlier performances, and this time round it was a sad disappointment. What used to be a viciously dark piece driven by half revealed horrors, open to different interpretations depending on your own concerns, history and imagination has been particularised as an explicit case-study of an incestuous family: and if by any chance you miss the point, there's an article in the programme book by the founder of a childrens' charity, telling you about the evils of child-abuse and explaining what you will feel when you see this work. So that's that. Within these narrow boundaries, Edward Watson gave what is already becoming one of his trademark impersonations of a seriously deranged personality, though his dancing needed a bit more power; Mara Galeazzi and Tamara Rojo did the roles created for this company by Jennifer Penney and Lesley Collier respectively, neither of them bringing out anything like the frightening intensity of their predecessors.

In Gloria, Carlos Acosta has deepened his interpretation since his first try and is starting to find some dramatic weight; Thiago Soares already has that, and gave one of the best performances I've seen of the second man. But there are too many MacMillany tricks in the piece, too much overt manipulation of our feelings, and it doesn't move me.