Hamlet gets on a war footing

8:11am Thursday 27th December 2007

They set A Midsummer Night's Dream on a 1940s sleeper train. They had the Capulets and the Montagues sparring in cat and bird-themed costumes in Romeo and Juliet.

And now Northern Ballet Theatre is turning its attention once more to Shakespeare - with a new production of Hamlet set in occupied Paris during the Second World War.

The show will have its world première in Leeds in February before touring around the country.

Two years in the making, Hamlet is co-directed by NBT's artistic director David Nixon and associate artist Patricia Doyle.

Performed to a specially-commissioned score from celebrated British composer Philip Feeney, the production is set in early 1940s occupied Paris where Hamlet's mind unravels against a backdrop of one of the most terrifying periods of the 20th century.

In Nixon and Doyle's scenario, a young man arrives back from the front to find his home and the world is not the one he left behind.

His father is dead, his mother has married his uncle and the enemy occupies his city. As his world descends into chaos, the boundaries between truth and deception, sanity and insanity become distorted.

The Leeds-based ballet company's reputation for dance theatre makes it ideally placed to bring the emotional impact of Shakespeare's tragedy to life through dance in its own inimitable style.

"I have wanted to create a dance version of Hamlet for a long time," says David Nixon. "Hamlet is a young man who starts out with everything but loses it all.

"It is a story that people immediately identify with and there is much about it that has resonance in our darker corners. Maybe that's why it is so popular, because somewhere deep inside us at some time we all debate whether to be or not to be."

On the challenges of writing a scenario based on such a well-known literary work, Patricia Doyle says: "It is daunting as we won't have any of the text - the famous soliloquies - but we must express these in dance and with emotion.

"Through dance, we can interpret the story and its central character in another way, staying true to Shakespeare's inspiration and imagination, but at the same time making it perhaps a little more contemporary by relating it to a fairly recent past."

It's been a busy year for the company. The Christmas production of Nutcracker recently drew to a close in Leeds, and earlier in the autumn, the UK tour of Romeo and Juliet ended with the final performance by acclaimed principal dancer Chiaki Nago as Juliet. Her final show, at the Alhambra, was an emotional event attended by her family from Japan and former NBT dancers she had worked with.

Originally from Hokkaido in Japan, Chaiki had spent most of her adult life with the Northern Ballet Theatre and even met her husband through the company. She is currently in China starring in the NBT's production of Madame Butterfly but will soon retire after 16 years.

"It was a dream come true for me to play Juliet," Chiaki told Play. "When I joined the company they were rehearsing Romeo and Juliet and I longed to play her. I covered (understudied) the role for a few years then eventually got to play her. It has been the highlight of my career - that and Madame Butterfly."

Chiaki and other NBT members have spent Christmas in China, with the four-week tour of Madame Butterfly taking in Hangzhou, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Hefei, Shanghai and Beijing.

In Beijing the company will give the closing performances of the celebrated Fifth Beijing International Dance Festival.

Leeds City Council, Leeds Metropolitan University and Yorkshire Forward are supporting the tour and representatives from each organisation have travelled to China to act as ambassadors for Yorkshire.

The Lord Mayor of Leeds is travelling to Hangzhou, one of Leeds's partner cities, as well as Beijing.

Simon Hill, executive director of business at Yorkshire Forward said: "More than 22 per cent of Yorkshire and Humber's inward investments last year came from China so it is vital that we make sure key potential investors understand what the region has to offer them."

Mark Skipper, NBT chief executive, adds: "NBT will act as a great cultural ambassador for Leeds, Yorkshire and the North of England. You can sometimes be forgiven for believing that when people outside the UK think of London when they think of England.

"Through this tour we hope to broaden this perspective and demonstrate how culturally rich the UK is. We are delighted that our partners are taking the opportunity to accompany us on the tour, further developing links between Yorkshire and China."

• Hamlet is on at Leeds Grand Theatre from February 16 to 23. For tickets ring 0870 1214901. There will be chance to learn more about the way the dancers work, with the company's Get Closer sessions. Ballet Explored', taking place on Thursday, February 21, from 11.45am to 12.45pm, includes a talk by NBT staff and a chance to watch the company in class. There will also be a pre-performance talk on Thursday, February 21 from 6.30pm to 7pm; a workshop and touch tour for the visually impaired on Saturday, February 23, from 10.30am to 1pm and an audio-described performance on Saturday, February 23, at 2.30pm.

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