The Palace Theatre has SOLD OUT English National Ballet's Swan Lake - 5-8 October.
I'm not completely sure of the significance of this but I can't remember the last time I saw dance at The Lowry in any of their three theatres and it being close to full - let alone sold out.
And The Lowry appear - in my opinion - to be losing sense in which of their three theatres to even programme dance. They have several times put shows in The Lyric this year that would clearly have been more appropriate to The Quays, while failing to draw a significant audience for Rambert (for example) - once so reliable but a company that has made the mistake of improving and modernising to the extent that it seems to have cost them the mainstream dance audience - or the mainstream dance audience has evaporated. (Which one can only ascribe to more than a decade of Conservative attacks on culture on multiple fronts.)
Ironically Rambert may have just brought themselves back to (more) mainstream prominence by shamelessly creating a show based on Peaky Blinders - Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby After years of minor adjustments to their name they have even cannily badged themselves as Rambert Dance for this production instead of the current RAMBERT.
Swan Lake is the most reliable ballet to programme - it combines a story that retains its ability to enchant (but is easy to follow and still retains huge affective power), spectacle and a score that is never less than delightful and full of strong melody and drama.
But this surely also indicates that there is an appetite for entertaining, well-produced, quality work by established, top-quality companies - that is marketed strongly. This seems so obvious that I can't believe I'm even saying the words.
So why is dance in such dire straights? Are Swan Lake (and probably Romeo & Juliet, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker) and Matthew Bourne the last defiant bastions? Or is this Little England securing what is rightfully theirs - proper British ballet for proper British people?
Or - as I have long believed - do Manchester audiences (broadly-speaking) not mix their venues? The Lowry audience go to The Lowry. The ATG audience go to the Palace and the Opera House. And the HOME audience go to HOME (where Hofesh Shechter does pretty well).
So this selling out of Swan Lake is simply the ATG audience going to see their once-every 12-18 months ballet show?
The interesting thing will be how MIF's Factory International - which finally opens in summer 2023 - shakes things up - or fails to find that elusive audience that clearly isn't necessarily going anywhere else.