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The Seven Deadly Sins seems like a good idea, but the setting, concentrating as it does on sex and sleaze, just seems to drown out most of the sins and with it much of the justification for doing it. Praise for Martha Wainwright, who has her mother's wonderful French-Canadian rolling-twang and the inventive if presumably expensive sets. Sadness at the thinness of the choreography, the difficulty at times in hearing Wainwright and the endless crotch show.

Tuckett increasingly seems to use rich and clever sets in productions where movement is a vital ingredient if less key to the entertainment than we are used to in dance. With a string of hits in the Linbury it's a shame this one has not panned out on the main stage. Paradoxically one of his greatest and most charming works is doing the rounds at the moment with Ballet Central and comes to the Opera House (Linbury) this week - Puirt-a-Beul. Simple sets, choreography and music that speaks across generations with charm and subtlety, it's a side of Tuckett that it would be nice to see more of. On the other hand if sex is the thing then it would be terrific to see his Licence My Roving Hands which he made for Sadler's Wells RB in the 80's to Jimmy Hendrix songs. Miyako Yoshida and the others in shiny tight PVC was something to behold and I still remember one patron clanking out on their Zimmer frame half way through. This was smoldering sex you could believe in rather than the manufactured and cold titillation of 7DS.

I've seen Pierrot Lunaire a few times and never again because of the appalling music. The world would have been a better place if Schoenberg's mum had sung to him something like "Doe a deer, a female deer, Ray, a drop of golden sun..." etc and impressed on him that notes are good and not notes are really criminally bad and no way to make a living.
 

MacMillan's La Fin du jour I really rather enjoyed - it looked like a master choreographer having fun and giving himself permission to try new things well away from comfort zones. The dancers haven't quite given themselves the same permission yet, but hopefully it will grow stronger in the dancing. I just love all those surreal hovercraft lifts and Spurling's wacky costumes. Jann Parry's excellent programme notes put it all context: the piece was created just after Mayerling and My Brother, my Sisters - no wonder MacMillan wanted to do something light and very, very, different. Anyway, glad it's back.