Lucette Aldous
	Lucette Aldous was tiny. Even 40 years ago, her height made it very difficult for her to find a job; these days I doubt any ballet company would employ her. It was - unsurprisingly - Marie Rambert who eventually took her on and developed her into a star: without that foresight, we'd have been deprived of one of the most charming and accomplished soubrettes in our ballet history. Aldous was actually born in New Zealand, in 1938, but her family moved to Australia four months later and it was there she had her early training, principally at the Francis Scully School in Sydney (which had earlier produced Elaine Fifield). She came to London on a scholarship and spent two years at the Royal Ballet school, but was turned down by both RB companies and by Festival Ballet because of her height. After Rambert accepted her, she first came to notice in the Dawn solo in Coppélia, where suddenly her confidence and musicality seemed more important than her lack of inches. She went on to dance Swanilda and Giselle, and a lovely Sylphide, and by the time Rambert came to mount Don Quixote - a seemingly insane venture for such a small company - Aldous was strong enough technically and temperamentally to justify the whole production by the quality of her dancing as Kitri - 'like rockets on a starry night', said Dance & Dancers. It was also during this period that she appeared in a famous television production of Sleeping Beauty, dancing the Lilac Fairy to Fonteyn's Aurora, and reminding older viewers of another tiny dancer who triumphed in the role - Lydia Lopokova. After six years with Rambert, Aldous felt she needed new challenges, and joined Festival Ballet, where she danced her first Odette/Odile and Sugar Plum Fairy, and had the immense advantage of dancing with the great John Gilpin. She stayed only 3 years before tiring of the constant round of Nutcrackers and leaving for the Royal Ballet touring company, joining as a principal to share the ballerina roles with Doreen Wells - a triumphant return she must have relished after her earlier rejection. Although she danced the big classics, she was perhaps most successful in the Ashton repertoire, especially The Dream (she was Nureyev's partner at his debut) and La Fille mal Gardée. Like Wells and other stars of the touring companies, she was better known and admired outside London. Aldous eventually married another Australian dancer, Alan Alder, and in 1971 she returned to her adopted homeland as a star of the Australian Ballet. She was seen again in London, though, both in person and on film, when Nureyev mounted his own production of Don Quixote for the company and chose her to dance with him as Kitri. Her 'pocket spitfire' interpretation again made her well able to hold her own even against Nureyev, and the recent reissue of this film should allow us to enjoy again her stylish and brilliant dancing.
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