Wayne McGregor: ‘Levelling up excellence everywhere, including London, should be something we can manage’

Walking through the bowels of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, which resembles - as is traditional in buildings with airy, elegant public spaces - a warren of tired hospital corridors, it’s head-swimmingly hot. That’s because of the dancers, I’m told, to keep their muscles warm so they don’t get injured as they train, rehearse and perform; Olympians disguised as swans, squabbling aliens, or anguished poets.

I’m here to meet the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey, a reimagining of Jim Henson’s 1982 cult epic The Dark Crystal (hence the squabbling aliens) has just opened in the ROH Linbury Studio, danced by members of his own company, Company Wayne McGregor (CWM).