I have a friend who loves telling jokes. One night he started a well-worn story: “Please”, he said, “if you’ve heard this before, don’t stop me – it’s one of my favourites.” I am always reminded of that evening when watching Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo – the Trocks to their many thousands of fans across the world – when they touch down in London on one of their regular stops. The jokes are great – the dance is pretty good too – and if the jokes are a bit familiar, well, that’s all part of the fun.
As it often does, their second programme begins with Act Two of Swan Lake (pictured right) – or, as the Trocks call it with their passion for old-style Ballets Russes glamour, Les Lac des Cynges. Whichever language, we all recognise the language of a bleached-blonde prince (Ashley Romanoff-Titwillow, also known as Joshua Grant), a bossy swan princess (the grand diva of the company, Olga Suppohozova, or Robert Carter) who, after she is captured by the hunter-prince, gives him a “don’t mess up my tutu, sonny” look. Many of the jokes work on two levels – Swan Lake is one of the broadest, prat-fall-iest parodies the Trocks do, but as well as the limelight-hogging corps de ballet member, and the evil magician who gets lost inside his cloak, there are also wonderful balletomane-focused jokes, such as the prince who has to ask his swan-princess to repeat her mime, because he can’t understand it – as, let’s face it, who can?
