Reviews

DANCE and music

SCOTTISH BALLET: ROMEO AND JULIET ****

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE

TWO hours after the curtain rises on Romeo and Juliet, we're back out on the street – a feat virtually unheard of in full-length narrative ballets, but one which is surely the way forward. Choreographer Krzysztof Pastor has dispensed with all the unnecessary market scenes and even a few superfluous characters. What remains is crisp, sharp storytelling – and one hell of a dramatic evening.

Scottish Ballet has shifted the action to 20th-century Italy, communicated through archive footage of Second World War and the 1980 terrorist attack on Bologna Station. Clad in stylish fashions from the 1930s, 1950s and present day, the dancers convey the timeless nature of irrational conflict. The sleek, minimal staging gives the show a modern, accessible feel, which may cause a frown or two among ballet purists, but serves Pastor's choreography perfectly.

What shines most here are the performances. Never before have the Scottish Ballet dancers looked so tight and in control. Pastor's movement clearly agrees with them, from the exciting ensemble moments to the tender duets. Paul Liburd is stunning as Romeo's playful, protective friend, Mercutio, and quite rightly receives the biggest cheer of the night. So too Tama Barry as the narrow-minded aggressor, Tybalt.

Pastor's introduction of Juliet is a stroke of genius, and far too dramatic to give away here. So too the balcony scene. In a show of highs, the only low is the cluttered staging of some scenes. A background of passers-by only serves to distract from the couple's passionate embraces. Thank goodness he let them die alone, in a heartbreaking final scene.

Kelly Apter

MUSIC

LADYTRON ***

ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

THE theory behind Ladytron is brilliant. Like a glossy, modern update of the Human League, they mix austerity with an understated but firmly realised sense of style. That both of their frontwomen – Glaswegian Helen Marnie and Bulgarian Mira Aroyo, both sometime models – are pushed to the front of the stage while the less photogenic Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu shrink into the background is telling. Marnie and Aroyo are both resplendent pop stars, stylish ice queens to complement the minimal electro grind pulsing from their synths and the boys' guitars.

Ladytron's first flush of fame was earlier this decade, and styles have moved on, but still Ladytron persevere and thrive, indicating how well they've tapped into something timeless.

The only problem with playing club electro in a live set, however, is that you really notice the vocal repetition when it's a live voice performing. The track Runaway from forthcoming album Velocifero, for example, pulses with the vocal hook "my little runaway" – which, live at Oran Mor, Marnie seemed to repeat dozens of times.

Such insistence is generally not boring, though – at least not when it involves the sass of their modelling industry-baiting early single Seventeen, or the lustre of tracks such as I'm Not Scared and Destroy Everything You Touch. These stand-outs sounded like they'd been crafted by elegant machines, which was surely the intention.

David Pollock

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW *

THE ARCHES, GLASGOW

ORIGINATING from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the putatively maverick duo of Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost – vaguely bracketable under the woolly nu-folk blanket – clearly have friends in the right places, given their recent Portishead support slot. Whatever world they inhabit, it's evidently one where the mere fact of playing music derived from the Balkans, primarily on violin and accordion, is a radically exotic novelty. Apart from their original compositions in this style, alongside versions of traditional tunes, the secret ingredient seems to be the seriousness with which the pair take themselves.

Unfortunately, it's a manner at odds with the passionate, defiantly celebratory character of the music they claim to extol, while a distinct lack of effort towards engaging with their audience didn't help the atmosphere either. While their playing was competent, the material's arrangements wouldn't have passed much muster on an open stage at a folk or world music festival, and occasional interjections of tuneless singing, in a bizarre faux-English trad accent, did little to compensate. When they finished their set after barely an hour, I wasn't the only one not waiting around for an encore.

Sue Wilson