Rupert Christiansen

The Premier Division

The Royal Ballet: 75 Years

By

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Seventy-five years of the Royal Ballet? The title of Zoë Anderson’s new book brought me up short with the realisation that I had been watching the company for over half its existence. Let me confess: I am a besotted fan of the sort that Nick Hornby described so wittily in Fever Pitch. The Royal Ballet is my team, very much the way that Arsenal is Hornby’s team: I rejoice at its triumphs, I despair at its shortcomings, I am the repository of useless information about its comings and goings, I queue all night and resort to bad things in order to get tickets. It’s a one-sided love affair, and probably not the healthiest aspect of my life.

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