The question should really be ‘does the telly’ ‘ or at least, the people who run telly ‘ ‘hate ballet?’ Christmas Day 2007 showed a ‘feast’ of classical ballet. One ‘course’ started on BBC1 with a prog entitled The Magic of Romeo and Juliet, 3.55pm followed half an hour later by Romeo and Juliet With The Royal Ballet (as opposed to the Cullybackey Dance Company?). It stars Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta, in what is described as “Kenneth MacMillan’s production” (no folks, he’s the choreographer) the bloke wot made the ballet. It all ends at 6.50pm. C4 has Strictly Bolshoi, 2.45 to 4.20pm, which has the English choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, showing the dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet how to ” dance ” ballet ”

You might well think ‘well ” yippee ”!’, at least Robbie the Reindeer and All Star Family Fortunes are on the other channels. But balletomanes are members of the same race as the rest of us (stretching a point or three) and pay their licence fees, (mostly). Genuine hard-core, and I mean hard-core, balletomanes are usually ten year old girls. But even energetic young ladies of ten may have problems in ‘viewing’ these two shows. By mid- to late-afternoon on December 25, most years, most citizens of the United Kingdom of Sweets (sorry ” Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and the Irish and Belgian people who tune in because their telly is even worse than ours, are in a somnolent state. This ranges from deep sleep to a state of flatulent regret for eating all that grub ‘ and Brussels sprouts. (Why doeSeanybody eat sprouts? Particularly on a great feast day? Is it the last remnants of English Puritanism? They are vile. But I digress ”).

Some people, as noted above, are in the deepest of deep sleep. Great if you’ve a porn DVD. Though young adults should be aware of the fact that ten year old girls can be mulishly stubborn, and quite vicious, if they are prevented from watching ballet on telly. They can, and will, tout¹ to your parents. When they have won the battle of the channel changer they will evince a superior (positively moral) attitude to the carnage and noxious fumes (them bloody Brussels again) around them.

It is worth asking what the television authorities are up to ‘ the last major ballet performance on (UK) telly was in midsummer 2007. It marked the retirement of Darcey Bussell from being a big star in the (British) Royal Ballet. It got a huge audience. The Romeo and Juliet with the charismatic Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo (who is wonderful: this iSean entirely cerebral, detached judgement) will probably fetch enormous audience figures. Why are modern telebroadcasters so nervous about the ballet? It has always gathered very large audiences to telly. At one time ballet popped up about once a month.

What’s the problem? For all the impact Darcey Bussell was allowed to make on television in the course of her career, her retirement performance ought to have been viewed by a handful of viewers. It was viewed by millions, in a ‘multi-channel’ situation where a good audience consists of hundreds of thousands.

The notion that the chaps in ballet are all ” sharp intake of breath ” homoSEXUAL ” can’t really have much to do with the matter. Even television executives must have realised that Gay women and men are not merely not frightening but are actually popular in the Noughties. (As in the Nineties, and the Eighties, despite the Plague, and the best efforts of gabshites like Kelvin MacKenzie and Richard Littlejohn). And most men in ballet actually are not Gay, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the reader to judge.?üine N Ph l

1 ‘Grass-up, tell tales (possibly suitably garnished with circumstantial evidence – like where your ‘dirty’ DVD* is stored).* This read ‘DD’ before sub-editing ‘ a ‘dirty’ Doctor of Divinity, under your mattress ” yes the bind does truly moggle ”