Nutcracker: Backstage with English National Ballet

For dance fans around the world, it’s impossible to imagine Christmas without The Nutcracker. This festive production has been at the heart of English National Ballet’s repertoire since the company was established in 1950 and the ENB have been delighting audiences with fresh interpretations of Marius Petipa’s original choreography every year since then, staging ten different adaptations to date and bringing the classic story as well as Tchaikovsky’s iconic score to life. 

But the success and ongoing popularity of the The Nutcracker is not something that the English National Ballet takes for granted. Fashions and tastes will always change, whilst the market for live entertainment is broader than ever, which means that ballet must be more relevant and compete harder for both traditional and new audiences, to satisfy the purists and to excite and delight a younger crowd.

Sky Arts commissioned Cornerstone Studios and Director, Zoe Dobson, to create this three-part series Nutcracker: Backstage with English National Ballet to showcase what it takes to re-invent a globally renowned classic. The first two, hour-long episodes follow the preparations and rehearsals which build to the opening night, while the final two-hour special, which aired on December 23rd and is available to stream on NOW, features a complete performance of the show filmed at London’s Coliseum. It takes a vast amount of effort to make something look so effortless, not just for the English National Ballet but for the Production and Post Production crews alike. To find out how everything remained en pointe throughout...read on.