THEY, whoever they may be, say that bigger is better, but Wayne Sleep has got his work cut out proving that to be true in the slimline world of ballet.

In the Big Ballet series, he’s joined by prima ballerina Monica Loughman in an attempt to get a troupe of plus-size amateur dancers to realise their dream of dancing Swan Lake. Of course, by “plus size”, we mean a dress size 12 or higher, which makes them too big for traditional ballet.

That in itself is a big enough task, but these people aren’t full-time dancers, and classes on evening and weekends must fit in around home and work lives.

The dancers are in good hands. Sleep is the shortest ballet dancer ever to debut on the Royal Ballet stage, so he knows a thing or two about defying tradition. He’s putting his full backing behind this project, saying: “What I’m trying to prove is that just because you’re big in weight or width, doesn’t mean you can’t dance. Why should these girls be told at the age of nine to give up and get out, with people saying they’ll never make it? To deny a child their aspirations is criminal. Who are these bullies to say they shouldn’t dance?”

Each dancer has a different story to tell – some have never even set foot on a stage before now, while some haven’t danced since their dreams were broken by unkind words at a young age.

Dance graduate Emma, 22, thinks noone wants a “chubby ballerina” and is fed up being judged on her size and not her ability when she goes to auditions. She explains: “You go to most auditions and they say ‘She’s got mixed up – Weight Watchers is further down’.”

These Big Ballet dancers are certainly enthusiastic. But Loughman and Sleep know they’re going to have to pull off something spectacular to amaze the critics, so the set, the costumes and the music must be perfect.

Now the roles are cast, the dancers know the basic ballet technique and there are less than five weeks to go before the troupe perform their version of Swan Lake in front of a 1,500-strong audience.