Shakespeare at the ballet

Mum and I were back at our favourite ballet venue, The Royal Opera House. We had gone primarily to see Carlos Acosta dance in Kenneth Macmillan's The Song of the Earth. But the evening started with Frederick Ashton's The Dream, a ballet of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It was lovely to see this old favourite as a ballet and after a while I even managed to tune out the whispering child sat behind us.

The changeling Indian boy was adorable and I was impressed at how long he 'slept' at the back of the stage. It was a shame that Marcelo Gomes in the role of Oberon seemed a little unsure at times, however the dancer covering for Puck was incredible. Unfortunately it was a last minute change I can't remember who was dancing, he had all the spring you would expect from Puck, even from the Amphitheatre you could see the mischievous glint in his eyes.

It was Johnathan Howells in the role of Bottom who really stole the show. He was amusing and made a convincing enchanted donkey. I am eternally impressed by men dancing en pointe and Howells managed to skip and jump while wearing hooves on his hands and a great big donkey head. Even in human form Howells was exactly like I imagined Bottom to be, although perhaps the hair was a bit too wild for me...

We had an obligatory ice cream in the interval and then it was back for Song of the Earth. I have not seen a ballet with singers before and this was the place to start. The music by Mahler was enchanting and the singers standing on alternate sides of the stage blended in and became a seamless part of the piece. Carlos Acosta was as captivating as usual, but a pleasant surprise for the evening was Marianela Nunez who was unbelievable in songs two and six.

I would definitely take the opportunity to see this pair of ballets again but would request that children are kept quiet by their families and that the Royal Opera House bans paper and plastic bags from the auditorium.

The cold days...

The temperatures have dropped down and I've found more time for my books. So here's what I've read curled up under the duvet.

Vigilante by Kerry Wilkinson

This is the second Jessica Daniel book and having enjoyed the first one I quickly got the second. I was pleased to see Jessica get a boyfriend, but then as she got more and more caught up in the case I became increasingly frustrated at the assumptions she was making. This book was where I started to draw likenesses to Rebus my original favourite detective and by the end it felt like Jessica could be Rebus' daughter as they share so many character traits. I wasn't as bought in to this story as I was to that of Locked In but it was still a good read.

The Woman in Black by Kerry Wilkinson

At the end of Vigilante I wanted to see what happened next and really I wanted to see whether the last text Jessica received in Vigilante was the glimmer of hope I was waiting for. This story really puzzled me as I tried to work it all out but the likeness to Rebus came out even more strongly and I didn't think the book stood up to Rankin's writing. However I will still be buying the next book to see what Jessica gets up to next and the Jessica Daniel novels are an all round easy read.

The Island by Victoria Hislop

One of the girls at work read this and recommended it and after it sat on my Kindle for a while I opened it up. This book was definitely worth the wait, another book where the daughter unravels the secrets of her family. A leper colony off the coast of Crete took centre stage and all the misconceptions about the disease took centre stage as families had their lives destroyed by this terrible disease. I realised that I held misconceptions about leprosy and now I know that you don't catch leprosy form casual contact, that for some people it can stay stable for years. The biologist in me enjoyed the knocked back sub-lot about the first treatments and the risks people took to try new treatments with potential horrendous side effects. But what I really loved about this book was that none of the characters seemed to be too self-obsessed. They all made mistakes and no-one was too good to be true and at the end I stayed up until 1am to finish this book in just two days as I was so desperate to find out what happened.

The Skeleton in the Closet by MC Beaton

This was a strange book all of Fell's life he has stayed home and worked to support his parents. When both his parents die Fell is left a small fortune and then the questions start, where did it come from? Fell moves Maggie in and predictably Maggie falls in love with Fell while fell simply sees Maggie as a frump. Throughout the book the mystery becomes clearer but as Fell and Maggie are just a little naive the story seems to be poorly constructed with limited intrigue. I found all the mishaps, a burglary and a car bomb a step too far and  I wasn't invested in Fell or Maggie but I read through to the end and despite one last fright the story concluded as expected with a suitably happy ending.

Last up I'm ashamed to admit that for the first time since Far From the Madding Crowd was my GCSE book I have failed to finish a book...

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I used to enjoy reading popular science and this book sounded like my kind of reading. Although there were some interesting points about the placebo effect which I'm always fascinated by this book was full of vitriol and after a quarter of the book I felt like I was simply reading a self-absorbed rant and decided that the content did not outweigh the lack of style. Safe to say I will not be finishing this book and I was sorry that a science book broke my usually good reading record.