Viv Hardwick talks to Birmingham Royal Ballet boss David Bintley about future touring

BIRMINGHAM Royal Ballet will continue to tour to the North-East and North Yorkshire in spite of the company’s concerns about future finances and the need to reduce costs. Artistic director David Bintley pledged the more slimline programmes are in no danger, in spite of rumours that BRB was concerned about ticket sales.

“It’s written in stone. We had a great visit to Sunderland this year and great houses for Beauty and the Beast and I would say that Durham’s Gala Theatre is the best touring date that we have on the mid-scale circuit. It’s always well-attended.

“I’m not sure where the rumour has come from, but we are looking at everything because everything is difficult. There are no two ways about it. You will have noticed that there was a change of policy at the (Sunderland) Empire. We looked hard at how well we could sell there and seemed to have come up with something that suits us all,” says Bintley.

This means that the Wearside venue no longer gets two ballet programmes, but a positive sign is that the Grand Opera House, York, will be featuring a triple-bill show over two days in May.

Durham Gala Theatre will stage the same triple bill in the week of May 25 and in October BRB will return to Sunderland.

The tour of York and Durham will feature Sir Frederick Ashton’s Les Rendezvous based on a group of friends meeting in a park; Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations using the music of ragtime performers like Scott Joplin and a new piece, Kin., from former BRB dancer Alexander Whitley using the music of young US composer Phil Kline.

“Kin. Is part of our policy of bringing new talent through the company. Sunderland will be getting Swan Lake because we have a massive tour of this show next autumn. I don’t think this is a show will is likely to fail,” says Bintley.

He agrees that “we’re going to have to be well-stocked with swans because this is a very big tour, but it should pay the bills and we’re hoping it will be a big earner.

“The recession is just starting to hit us. It didn’t seem to touch us at the beginning, but the past couple of years have been hard and if there are any rumours about us looking long and hard at touring, well we are. Our audience base isn’t big enough and we’re not taking enough at the box office and we are having to look. But there is nothing more to it than that. We’ve toured to Sunderland for more than 20 years and I have never heard it mentioned that we would stop going,” Bintley says.

I take the artistic director back to the days when “Ballet for a fiver” got the first audiences into their seats at the Empire in its early days of touring to the region.

“Prices have gone up a little bit since then,” he says with a smile, “but still good value, particularly in the North-East where we know it is challenging times up there and has been for a while. Fortunately, we don’t tour up there too close to the pantomime season so that people are forced to make a choice.”

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