Synopsis
The classic tale of The Three Little Pigs retold in ballet for children.
Review
I've finally come to the end of my run of Bite-Sized Northern Ballets, I'm immensely thankful for that fact. It has been a trying experience. I kind of wish this hadn't been the last of the three, had it been The Elves And The Shoemaker I would have come out this end with some hope for the format.
Unsurprisingly this had the same start as the other two, unlike the other two this did at least have an audience participation dance that wouldn't have caused too much drama to actually perform. (No, I did not join in.)
Sadly no pigs were eaten in this adaptation, perhaps we should have an adult version of the original tales with all the gory details in... but this one was definitely child-friendly.
As well as the Three Little Pigs we have Mummy Pig who doesn't seem to do a lot, the Big Bad Wolf whos overacting was quite fun, and Rabbit the market-seller... Rabbit could have been good, but we don't get the chance to find out. As she starts to dance we get a close-up shot and you can't actually see her feet. Who was in charge of that decision?
While the pigs are probably off building their ill-conceived houses we get a scene of Wolf out in the forest feeling pretty hungry, but much like the scene in The Elves And The Shoemaker you're left wondering what it was there for. It was an overly long piece that could have done with something else to it as it wasn't a great bit of storytelling. A voiceover from our enthusiastic narrator actually would have done wonders.
Time to 'fess up, I was a very bad watcher for this... I believe there was an inconsistency with the story that was told at the beginning to the ballet that was performed. The reason I'm a bad watcher is that I knew the story was going to be terrible and I was only partly listening so can't confirm if it was different or not.
Yet again this adaptation misses a great opportunity just like the others did, not using the sets to their full potential. Each scene is its own piece but one in particular could have been done with an effortless transition. We go from an exterior shot of the brick house to an interior shot, with a fold out house on wheels the change could have been so smooth. I think this is possibly the thing I'm most disappointed about overall, the lack of connection to "real" ballet with the way they show the performance.
In Three Little Pigs there is also something I found personally annoying. (Whether it's accurate or not.) One of the animations between scenes is of three hills with flags appearing on the hills where they build their houses. The first two flags appear blowing in the wind point right and the third appears blowing left. Technically I know that's possible but it was irritating visually.
I'm here again wondering what the point in this was. This felt more like a collection of skits rather than ballet. At the first of the three productions there were actually a lot of people with their children, at the second it was just me and for this one a woman and her two daughters arrived halfway through the performance. I don't know if the lack of interest was because of how the first one was received or not but I'm not going to be telling people they missed out. Especially when from start to finish this one was a grand total of 37 minutes, including a terrible cartoon.
What you should do
I think we know by now I'm not going to suggest seeing this, instead look for a live performance somewhere.
Movie thing you wish you could take home
Can we have a world where you don't need planning permission to put up houses? Hmm, actually, nevermind.
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