Twelve Days of Christmas plus One for mafief and okapi

Just back from a weekend away, and catching up on the ficlets.

Firstly, it is inevitable that the season of goodwill would put extra strains on Mrs Hudson,

so for mafief  we have Death by Tinsel

And then I have a soft spot for Rudybago, my many tentacled alien (as does Dr McCoy),

and so, it appears, does stonepicnicking_okapi , hence Winter Sport

Swan Lake

Last year spending the weekend between Christmas and New Year in London had been such a success we decided to repeat the experience.  Having seen all the family between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (an extended celebration due to having nurses in the family) it was good to get away for a few days.

I'd been wanting to see Matthew Bourne's version of Swan Lake for some time, and realising it was on at Saddler's Wells over Christmas it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go.

This production has male swans and we saw Will Bozier as The Swan and Dominic North as The Prince.  The story is treated differently from the traditional production (the last performance I saw was by the Bolshoi), and not just for the casting.  More of the action takes place in the Prince's head.

It's a very monochrome production, with only the occasional character in bright clothing.  To me that made it harder to see what the individual dancers were doing when they were all wearing black - whereas with the white swans that wasn't a problem.  The swans wore feathered breeches which were effective, but it did give me a vision of the Ferret in costume.  And occasionally the choreography was such that although the music grew faster the dancing didn't.

However, those are minor points.  The orchestra was very good.  The dancers were excellent, and everything flowed beautifully.  It was the ideal Christmas outing.