BALLET: The Beautiful Game, Liverpool Playhouse

Sep 17 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

The Beautiful Game, ballet at the Liverpool Playhouse _320

AS THE footwork of LFC led them to victory in Marseille last night, a more delicate kind of footwork was impressing those who had stayed at home.

The English National Ballet gave the public premiere of their footballing tribute The Beautiful Game at the Playhouse, attended by legends of the sport including Alan Hansen, John Barnes and England goalkeeper Gordon Banks.

It was a performance commissioned to commemorate the ten most iconic moments in British football, and saw the country’s leading ballet talent interpret sporting history including Maradona’s "hand of God", Paul Gascoigne’s dramatic 1990 sending off and, of course, that winning England goal in 1966.

It was staged to mark the 85th anniversary of the New Football Pools, with dancers kitted out in corporate logos on t-shirts and tutus.

After the 12- minute show, choreographed to a mix of Nessun Dorma Elvis Presley’s A Little Less Conversation and You’ll Never Walk Alone, Barnes and Hansen took to the stage for a question and answer session alongside representatives from the ENB and the pools.

Unfortunate technical difficulties held up the performance, which suffered a disasterous false start before starting from the top.

Beginning with a mix of a contemporary, modern routine before moving into traditional ballet, other moments recreated were Gordon Banks’ World Cup save against Brazil in the 1970 World Cup, the inception of the Johann Cruyff Turn and David Beckham’s 2001 free kick goal against Greece.

Alan Hansen said the performance had been "absolutely fantastic".

He took a range of questions for the panellists, some lighthearted football queries and other serious enquiries about learning ballet.

John Barnes said: "If you look at the footwork and co-ordination, if you can get those elements into your game it can be very effective.

"He’s not one of our favourite people, but Ronaldo, his footwork is very balletic at times."

Richard Boardley, director of the Football Pools Trust explained how the evening’s entertainment had come about.

He said: "A few months ago we were talking about the 85th birthday and decided we really ought to be doing something exceptional.

"It’s a well kept secret of ours that over £200m has gone into the arts from the Pools, including tens of thousands into this building here.

"Somebody mentioned ballet and the room went quiet at first, and when we started talking about it, we realised that if it had to be done it had to be done really well."

Choreographer Jenna Lee said: "The first step for us was seeing the original footage and thinking of ways to recreate them. Some were harder than others – Maradona was great to do, but Beckham was a bit harder.

"But we wanted football and ballet fans to understand what was going on."

The Beautiful Game was not part of the Playhouse’s season III programme and tickets were allocated free via the new Football Pools website, where the top ten iconic footballing moments were picked and voted on by visitors.