A HONLEY man’s production of Cinderella is to be one of the Christmas Day TV highlights.
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s brand new production of the fairytale classic, Cinderella, directed and choreographed by David Bintley, will be screened on BBC2 tomorrow at 3pm.
And the programme will feature some behind-the- scenes glimpses of Bintley at work.
The programme was filmed by Ross MacGibbon, an award-winning film-maker and former dancer with the Royal Ballet. The show moves to the Lowry in Salford in the new year.
Bintley started his dance career in Huddersfield and the former Holme Valley Grammar School boy was clearly destined for a much bigger stage.
Brought up in Honley in a home filled with music, he took his first dance steps with Audrey Spencer, trained with the Royal Ballet School and by the age of 28 was the company’s youngest ever resident choreographer.
Bintley said of Cinderella: “Right from the start, the choice of collaborators is paramount, especially when you are creating a big piece. The music is obviously a vital factor, but the look of the production is so important as well.
“I’ve never worked with designer John Macfarlane or lighting designer David Finn, although they've produced work for Birmingham Royal Ballet before – most famously for Peter Wright’s Nutcracker – created for the company the year it moved to Birmingham.
“I've wanted to work with John in the past, but one of us has always been busy with other projects at the wrong times. As soon as we started work on the ballet, John and I established that we were going to do a 'proper' Cinderella. John immediately went to work and everything that he has produced is utterly beautiful and wonderful.”
The show goes out at 3pm on BBC2, Christmas Day.
