Sarah lamb

Steven McRae ranked for a decade as the Royal Ballet’s star virtuoso – a fearless technician of dazzling precision, speed, stamina and verve. Serious injury, including a torn Achilles tendon, has recently dogged him to the point that anyone sane would have thrown in the towel, but with a sheer bloody-minded resilience and ego to match his phenomenal talent, he has fought his way to recovery through a fearsome regime of therapy that would make any Wimbledon champion or Olympic gold medallist blanch. McRae tap dances as if possessed by the daemon associated with the composer After another long period off stage, McRae returns to performance in a cabaret-style show in the friendly intimacy of the Linbury Theatre.

Mothballed since March when it danced a farewell Swan Lake, the Royal Ballet made a triumphant and joyous return to Covent Garden last Friday, performing a string of ancient and modern works before an invited audience of 400. Meanwhile, around the country (and the world) ballet-starved viewers paid £16 to watch a Vimeo livestream. Jonathan Lo and the 83-strong orchestra, enjoying added elbow room in the stalls, set the tone for an emotional evening with the Sleeping Beauty overture — the ballet that famously reopened the Opera House after the second world war. It was a natural and poignant choice, but director Kevin O’Hare hadn’t succumbed to ancestor worship.