Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre review: Bravo – this superlative adaptation never puts a foot wrong

Nadine Higgin, Grace Saif, Daisy Sequerra and Yanexi Enriquez in Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre - (Manuel Harlan-097)

When I was a boy I thought Ballet Shoes was for girls: a story of poor strivers desperate to don a tutu. This delicious show about three female foundlings forging their own identities, and a makeshift family, in a house full of oddballs in interwar London absolutely bowled me over. Based on Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 novel but tweaked and modernised by adapter Kendall Feaver, it’s suffused with gung-ho spirit, exuberance and larky wit.

Above all, it tells young girls (and by extension, boys) they can be whatever they want to be, and mounts a powerful defence of the arts. One of Streatfeild’s young heroines, Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez) is a natural mechanic who wants to be a pilot. But that doesn’t mean wannabe ballerina Posy (Daisy Sequerra) or talented actress Pauline (Grace Saif) should look for a job in cyber.

Katy Rudd’s production may not have the dazzle and snark of last year’s NT Christmas hit, The Witches, but in its celebration of plucky women and old-school values – personal and theatrical – it never puts a foot wrong. The acting ensemble is excellent, the choreography (by Ellen Kane) and stagecraft sublime, and Frankie Bradshaw’s sets wonderfully simple. There are a plethora of in-jokes and references (to ballet, Bauhaus and Peter Brook, among others) that will delight those in the know yet still amuse those who aren’t.

Eccentric paleontologist-explorer Matthew Brown (Justin Salinger) is exasperated when his orphaned great-niece Sylvia (Pearl Mackie) is foisted on him aged 11. He in turn lumbers her with three baby girls saved from various perils on his international jaunts while she’s still a child.

Yanexi Enriquez in Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre (Manuel Harlan)

Supported by housekeeper and proxy ‘Nana’ Miss Guthridge (Jenny Galloway) Syliva learns plumbing, electrics and dressmaking. She keeps the impoverished household at 999 Cromwell Road afloat by letting rooms to boarders including a lesbian doctor of literature and an Indian mechanic who prove useful to her young charges. Here, Feaver and Rudd streamline characters from the book, but also put Streatfeild’s coded messages of tolerance and individualism out front.

The bratty child-acting of the three leads is by-the-numbers at first, but soon deepens. These girls never knew their parents: all adopted the surname Fossil, in honour or their paleontological surroundings. They don’t like each other but learn to rub along and then love each other when their respective callings strike. Their need to work to save the family home feels as relevant today as it did in the 1930s.

The three young leads are great together but each gets a moment in the spotlight: Enriquez soaring into the auditorium on a flying harness; Sequerra dancing a solo; Saif showing us how nuance and interpretation matter in acting. Salinger plays all the grown-up, authoritarian roles, including Posy’s female mentors and Pauline’s impatient male directors, to hilarious effect. Mackie is heartbreakingly affecting as Sylvia, Sid Sagar irresistible as the Indian lodger who woos her.

I feared Ballet Shoes would feel old fashioned. Growing up, my sister and her friends loved it, while boys shunned it. I’m glad to finally make its acquaintance in this superlative staging. No notes. Bravo.

National Theatre, to Feb 22; nationaltheatre.org.uk