Voices of British Ballet
Episodes
Irina Baronova
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What agony to hear this gorgeous, beguiling woman lament the lack of interest she feels was shown to her generation in passing on their knowledge and ...
Rowena Jackson and Philip Chatfield
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This gorgeous couple, infectiously happy and loving and warm, not surprisingly became special “voices” for British ballet. They were stars of The ...
Celebrating Ninette de Valois: the founding of The Academy of Choregraphic Art
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ninette de Valois’s Academy of Choregraphic Art in March 1926, and to mark 25 years ...
Anne Heaton
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Anne Heaton’s career coincided with an upsurge in creative talent at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. Observant and wide ranging she reflects on many th...
Darcey Bussell
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Darcey Bussell talks to the dance critic Alastair Macaulay about her graduation performance at The Royal Ballet School, her early career with both Sad...
Henry Danton
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this extract, poor Henry Danton always seems to be running behind his talent – that is until he met the wonderful ballet teacher, Vera Volkova. H...
Jean Bedells
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jean Bedells talks about the 1930s as if it was yesterday. Full of detail and feats of memory, we are given an idea of the sense of foreboding that de...
Dianne Richards
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dianne Richards talks about skipping her dancing life, especially the start of London Festival (now English National) Ballet. Names from the world of ...
Richard Alston
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The distinguished choreographer and director Richard Alston explains to Alastair Macaulay, how, as a teenager, he was entranced by watching ballet. Af...
Edward Watson
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Over a long career, Edward Watson became one of The Royal Ballet’s greatest male principals, in the footsteps of Anthony Dowell and David Wall. He i...
Violetta Elvin
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is introduced by Dame Monica Mason. Violetta Elvin was one of Frederick Ashton’s favourite ballerinas. She was born Violetta Prokhorova...
David Vaughan
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Vaughan – unparalleled writer on the choreography of Frederick Ashton – catches moments and movements from The Royal Ballet’s history. In ...
Ernest Tomlinson
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this no-nonsense, down-to-earth account of writing music for Northern Ballet Theatre’s production of Aladdin, choreographed by Laverne Meyer...
Patrick Harding-Irmer
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here is Patrick Harding-Irmer proving that it is never too late to start dancing. He says, in this interview with Patricia Linton, founder and directo...
Marcia Haydée
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2017, Marcia Haydée was in Stuttgart for a week to celebrate her 80th birthday. Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British B...
Deborah Macmillan
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah MacMillan, who talks to former Royal Ballet principal Bruce Sansom, is not afraid to speak her mind. Here she variously both endorses and expl...
Romayne Grigorova
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Romayne Grigorova has had a long, distinguished career in ballet and the theatre. Here, in conversation with Patricia Linton, founder and director of ...
Cassa Pancho
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Cassa Pancho decided to interview Black female ballet dancers in the UK for her degree dissertation in 1999, she could not find any. So she seize...
Yvonne Minton
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Johnson and Patricia Linton spoke to Yvonne Minton in 2017 about her role as a young member of The Royal Opera, singing Mahler’s Das Lied vo...
Thea Musgrave
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1969, Peter Darrell choreographed Beauty and the Beast for Scottish Theatre Ballet. Here Thea Musgrave discusses with Stephen Johnson the challenge...
Pamela May
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This ‘voice’ of British Ballet is that of Pamela May. She was born in 1917 and after retiring as a ballerina with The Royal Ballet became the teac...
Mary Clarke
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation Mary Clarke, former editor of Dancing Times. It is thanks to her godson, Jerome Monahan, that we have this evocative and informative in...
Leo Kersley
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, the dancer and teacher Leo Kersley discusses his formative years in London in the 1930s and the many different companies he eventuall...
Lucette Aldous
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You can hear in her voice how much Lucette Aldous appreciated and revelled in every step of her way from Ballet Rambert to Festival Ballet and The Roy...
Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In conversation with Alastair Macaulay in 2019, Kenneth Tharp conveys a multitude of observations, along with historical content, and both personal an...
Keith Money
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Keith Money is a pioneering photographer of ballet. He moved from loving and photographing horses to loving and photographing dancers. He decided he w...
Joseph Horowitz
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Horowitz is the composer of16 ballets scores, two one-act operas, five string quartets, nine concertos, and many works for wind and brass, as w...
Donald MacLeary
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast featuring Donald MacLeary, the ballerina Darcey Bussell makes a fascinating and full introduction to her friend and mentor. She stress...
Barbara Fewster
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here Barbara Fewster tells us about working at The Royal Ballet School. Her voice has a mixture of authority and kindness which will be remembered by ...
Anita Landa
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From a start in Flamenco, Greek dancing and a bit of ballet, Anita Landa describes here not only how her dancing life took off, but how Festival Balle...
Pineapple Poll
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gerald Dowler hosts a special episode about the comic ballet Pineapple Poll created for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its creators John Cranko a...
Julia Farron
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Farron was born in London in 1922 and was part of the vanguard of extraordinary talent that helped shape ballet in 20th Century Britain. In 1931...
Rowena Fayre
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at...
Peter Wright
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Darcey Bussell introduces this interview with Peter Wright. A man of the theatre through and through, in this conversation Peter Wright shows us that ...
Lilian Hochhauser
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades the Hochhauser name has been synonymous with the visits to London of the greatest Russian ballet companies and musicians. In conversation ...
Lynn Seymour
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In any history of The Royal Ballet, a special place must be reserved for Lynn Seymour, as the dance actress par excellence.Here she tells Alastair Mac...
Jock MacFadyen
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patricia Linton talks to the artist Jock McFadyen about his work on the designs for Kenneth MacMillan’s The Judas Tree. We hear about Jock’s own r...
Pauline Clayden
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pauline Clayden was born in 1922. Here she talks to Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, about her student days, and moves on to ...
James MacMillan
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
James MacMillan is one of the world’s most prolific and widely respected composers. To date, two of his works have been used in ballets, both choreo...
Gillian Lynne
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The great choreographer and director Gillian Lynne tells Lynn Wallis how it was a giant, but ultimately rewarding step, to leave the Sadler’s Wells ...
Siobhan Davies
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Siobhan Davies explains to the dance critic Alastair Macaulay her initial engagement with dance in the 1960s. She talks about how she began as an art ...
Clement Crisp on Constant Lambert
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Critic and writer Clement Crisp gives a succinct and vivid summing up of the debt British ballet owes to Constant Lambert, not just as the conductor f...
Dudley Simpson
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This self-effacing, straightforward man with a twinkle in his eye is known for his compositions for many TV dramas in the 1960s and 70s, including Doc...
Beryl Grey
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Darcey Bussell introduces this episode featuring the dancer Beryl Grey.Beryl Grey is in conversation with Frank Freeman, who sadly died in 2011, about...
Brenda Hamlyn
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini talks about training under Marie Rambert, the post-war dance scene and touring Germany with ENSA in the immediate aftermath of W...
Joan Seaman
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joan Seaman gives us a wonderful bird's eye view of VE Day which she spent seeing Sadler's Wells Ballet stars Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann dance...
David Wall
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Wall was one of the greatest male dancers of his era, with an extraordinary stage charisma, range, theatricality and honesty. In this interview ...
The Braunsweg Years
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Festival Ballet and the impressario Julian Braunsweg is told by a panel who danced with the company.The dance writer, and former dancer, ...
Noel Bronley
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Noel Bronley was a member of International Ballet from 1946 until it closed in 1953. Little remembered now, at the time International Ballet was a ver...
John Craxton
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For over half a century, John Craxton was a major force in the visual arts of this country. From the late 1940s on, his main source of inspiration had...
John Tooley
07 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If ever a job needed diplomacy it must be as General Director of the Royal Opera House, a post Sir John Tooley held from 1970 until 1988. He was also ...
Violette Verdy
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Violette Verdy’s laughter and intelligence endlessly shine through in this discussion with Clement Crisp. She explains how, as dancer and actress, m...
Antoinette Sibley
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dame Antoinette Sibley talks with Alastair Macaulay. Her wonderful mix of enthusiasm, appreciation and practicality typify the glorious mercurial tale...
After Diaghilev
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The ballet writer Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode of Voices of British Ballet by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet student, principal dan...
Christopher Wheeldon
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dame Darcey Bussell talks to Natalie Steed to introduce an interview with the dancer and choregrapher, Christopher Wheeldon.Christopher Wheeldon talks...
Wendy Toye
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Cooper talks to Natalie Steed to introduce this inteview with the dancer, director and choreographer Wendy Toye.It begins with Wendy Toye’s mem...
Mark Morris
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers. Interview...
Monica Ratcliffe
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of our new podcast about the history of British ballet Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, tells Natalie S...
Coming soon
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Launching soon - a new podcast bringing to life and celebrating the history of dance in Britain. For more than 20 years the ballet dancer and teacher ...