No headpine

'As far as I can tell," Coronation Street's Anne Kirkbride was telling us, "my great-grandfather lived in that bus shelter over there".

He wasn't, as you might conclude, sleeping rough. She meant that his photographic studio had stood on the site of the shelter.

The actress, who's played Deirdre for the past 35 years, had left the cobbled streets of Weatherfield for the outside world to investigate her family history.

And no, it shouldn't read BBC1 after the title You Don't Know You're Born, although it's difficult not to regard this ITV1 programme as a rip-off of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? in which a famous person climbs their family tree.

This version adds a few things to avoid being called a complete rip-off. The celebrity is required, for instance, to try their hand at the jobs done by their ancestors. So Kirkbride drove a horse-drawn plough, took photographs as the Victorians would have done, and went back to the land by working on an Irish farm.

This wasn't without hardship. The ploughing knackered her, taking her an hour to plough a furrow 22 metres long. She was tired after just one length - as she explained in an expletive-deleted comment - and had another 400 lengths to go.

Even feeding the geese chopped potatoes, caused anguish. "It's all gone down me nails, me nail technician will go mad," she said.

An added poignancy was given to her investigation by the death of her father, a newspaper cartoonist, a month before she made the programme. This provoked the tearful scene demanded by shows like this.

Overall, she was a jovial guide through the lives of her great-grandfathers - one an artist, the other a farmer. The paperwork was done by local historians (and the programme's researchers, I guess) but Kirkbride got to dig around too. Unfortunately that came as she had to cut peat for the fire.

If a series is called Five Days, I expect it to be scheduled on five consecutive nights not three this week and two next as the BBC has done with Five Days.

The first day was, of necessity, a slow burner as the mystery was set up. A woman disappeared from a lay-by when she stopped to buy flowers. One minute she was there, the next she'd vanished to the consternation of the two young children she'd left in the car. Then they went missing too.

Gwenda Hughes' script has set up all manner of little mysteries around the one big one, with the story set to shatter into half-a-dozen fragments before finally coming together again by the end of the fifth day.

As yet, we can only guess at what's happened and why the detective in charge of the investigation refuses to get the press involved in the search for the missing mother and children. I thought that publicity was one of the first things the police wanted in a missing persons investigation.

The Russian State Ballet of Siberia, Newcastle Theatre Royal

A set of three classic ballets is brought to the Theatre Royal by the supremely talented Siberian company, all scored by Tchaikovsky, so whether it's classical dance or romantic music you're after, you'll find it here. Performances of The Sleeping Beauty were on Monday and Tuesday.

The little girl sitting behind me was entranced to see one of the ballerinas, kitted out in white tights and short shorts, sneaking a crafty tab outside the theatre just before the performance. She winked and wiggled her fingers at the child, but once on stage any human emotion seemed to depart in the face of formal gestures and technical brilliance.

Anna Aulle as the 16-year-old Princess Aurora required to choose a suitor from an array of likely lads, was as light as thistledown and performed some extremely difficult steps but there was no sense that she was enjoying herself. In particular when wicked fairy Carabosse gave her the spindle and the courtiers and her parents were trying to warn her, there was no mischief in her teasing them with it. Having said that, Anna'a technical expertise was dazzling.

My personal favourite was Carabosse, in scarlet and black cloak used to great effect, capering grotesquely around the stage and miming maniacal laughter as she takes her revenge for an imagined slight.

The costumes were sumptuous and the principals and soloists tackled the notoriously difficult pieces with athleticism and skill. The Red Riding Hood pas de deux injected some much-needed humour.

* Box Office 0870-905-5060

Swan Lake tonight and tomorrow; Nutcracker Fri and Sat

Sue Heath

Swan Lake,

Sunderland Empire

THIS classic ballet with music by Tchaikovsky dates back to 1877, yet its appeal is timeless - and if the audience at the Empire was a guide, it's still as popular as ever.

The show was staged by The Russian Classical Ballet Theatre, whose figurehead, Ellen Kent, pays frequent visits to the city. Her productions, ballet or opera, are always solidly performed, and this was no exception.

The night began with an announcement that Chloe Clark, a nine-year-old local girl, would take the stage as a guest of honour. Arranged through the Make-A-Wish Foundation because of Chloe's serious illness, when she appeared in the ballroom scene, the audience broke into applause.

Aside from this, the actual ballet was enchanting. The simple story of love against evil unfolded at a gentle pace, but it was the skill and perfect movements that really captured the attention.

Nadezhda Schepachiova was a truly elegant Odette, the queen of swans enslaved by Baron von Rothbart's spell. Her noble prince was the suitably handsome Vladimir Statnii, who was both graceful and precise. What really impressed was how the company worked together - the chorus scenes had movements perfectly in synch. They made the ballet what it should be: a quite ethereal show of beauty.

The only downside was the sets, which seemed a little dull and dreary, but I really couldn't fault the dancing.

* Runs until tonight. Box office 0870-6021130.

Sarah Foster