Nutcracker Sweeties is Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington’s big band attack on Tchaikovsky. It portrays Broadway and America in the 1940s; full of humor, irony, commentary, swing and blues. The cast, dressed in an array of glamorous Jasper Conran costumes, includes pom-pom girls, drum majorettes, sailors, GIs and Candy Kane. David Bintley's choreography is a catwalk of jazz styles. With its glamour-puss clothes and flashing neon set, Nutcracker Sweeties is imaginative, funny, and visually irresistible.
Kenneth MacMillan choreographed his last ballet, The Judas Tree, especially for Irek Mukhamedov who takes the lead in this striking production. On a building site, thirteen workmen, led by their foreman, react to the vampish behaviour of a woman who has arrived in their midst. In the heated confusion of the group, one man stands alone in the tenderness of his response. Gradually the dark underside of male sexuality and the power of peer pressure is exposed as the ballet draws the viewer into a web of betrayal, loss and terror. Winner of the 1992 Olivier Award for Best New Dance Work.
