With our constant re-evaluation of just what “traditional” fairy tales might really be about, it was interesting to see balletLORENT offering a family-friendly dance version of Snow White, but also a grittier, more visceral variant freshly retold in words by Carol Ann Duffy. Here the narrative is cut to the bone to reveal a harsh tale fuelled by the urgent desire to defy time and hang on relentlessly to youth and beauty. The widowed Queen (a fabulous role for Caroline Reece, whose maturity shines out as essential to the character) dotes on her young daughter (Virginia Scudeletti) until she feels eclipsed by the princess’s youth and blossoming charm. In this stark analysis of maternal betrayal, she is eaten up so painfully by a visibly agonising envy that she orders the royal huntsman to kill Snow White. Naturally he doesn’t, which is just as well since, eschewing any fussy Prince Charming-type, he is destined eventually to marry her. Abandoned in an initially alien woodland, Snow White is adopted by (and I quote the commentary here) seven stunted miners. Cue for a pattern of movement which is expressively funny, all clumping energy replacing the grace of the court. Back at the palace the Queen consults her Magic Mirror, personified by a dancer (Aisha Naamani) draped from head to toe in a reflective silver costume that makes every movement look like liquid mercury.  In an act of desperation the Queen almost kills her daughter, who is revived by the ever-handy huntsman (a practical chap to have around in an emergency) and harmony is restored, the Queen forgiven and a baby girl born to Snow White. But despite the seductive notion that compassion heals everything, this wouldn’t have that distinctive  Carol Ann Duffy touch if a happy ending just descended from the heavens, and while the final tableau shows a reconciled grandmother and a happy young mother, the ubiquitous suggestion of blood flowing lets us know that handing on one’s cherished role to a younger generation will never be easy, and that one tale’s innocent/romantic heroine may still become another story’s jealous, ageing Wicked Queen.

Gail-Nina Anderson