Carl Davis - A Simple Man / Northern Ballet Theatre [DVD] - Classical Ballet Performance for Home Entertainment & Gift Giving

This ballet, or dance drama as Gillian Lynne, prefers to call it, was a long-wished for collaboration between herself and the composer, Carl Davis. It came about as a result of a very open-ended commission form the BBC to `make something' (BBC quote) to celebrate L.S. Lowry's work for a television production celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth (1887-1976).The talents of the Northern Ballet were combined with those of Christopher Gable and Moira Shearer who were persuaded to come out of dance retirement, and with a great deal of training in the particular dance/acting moves required `A Simple Man' became reality. Finally Albert Finney was engaged to provide an illustrated introduction - a choice based on his shared experience of growing up in Salford like Lowry.The production takes the form of 8 scenes depicting stages in Lowry's life based upon the images and situations depicted in his paintings. An enormous amount of care was taken to achieve exactly the correct postures and gestures and it was this aspect that was the most challenging for the dancers who had to learn a whole range of new dance movements and styles.All of this is explained in a totally fascinating 50 minute retrospective conversation between Gillian Lynne and Carl Davis as a bonus feature. The equally interesting 11 minute introduction by Albert Finney is also included. These two features add enormously to the appreciation of the ballet/dance drama.The actual production and dancing fully justifies this immense care and is a very rewarding experience. The production went on to be a staple stage production featured in the Northern Ballet repertoire for years and Christopher Gable was engaged as their director in 1987 after the broadcast.The visual format of the ballet and introduction is in 4:3 but this scarcely matters as this format was exactly how it had been conceived for filming. Any wider image would have been wrong therefore. The actual imaging is totally crisp and very well lit and stands up excellently to close scrutiny. The sound is in excellent stereo. The later documentary is in 16:9 format. Opus Arte have made a fine job of processing the original BBC recording for this DVD presentation.There is no alternative to this DVD production which, thankfully, is a model of its kind. As everything about it is of the highest quality and exactly as originally conceived, I can see no justification in withholding and of the full 5 stars. This is therefore a very highly recommended issue in my opinion.