Birmingham Royal Ballet, Cheltenham

2:25pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

Here is a triple bill that demonstrates the emotional versatility of this terrific company. It ranges from the anguish of Ashton's Dante Sonata to the heights of camp hilarity in Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations, with a cool abstract work by the promising young choreographer Kit Holder sandwiched between them.

Anyone who doubts that Frederick Ashton was the greatest choreographer of the last century should go to see Dante Sonata. This rivetingly intense work - to Liszt's Fantaisie, quasi Sonate - was premiered in January 1940. It was Ashton's horrified response to the prospect of a second great war barely 20 years after the first, and it marked a change of style from the lighter confections he had made so far.

Two groups are in conflict, the Children of Light (dressed in white) and the Children of Darkness (women in long black skirts, men scantily covered, with black snakes wound around their limbs). They represent good and evil forces who are equally unhappy, indicating that in war nobody is the winner. There are moments when male corpses are piled up, dancers in crucified poses, acts of violence, but, in the main, pain, torment, anguish, conflict are semi-abstracted, as the 22 dancers, in seething, writhing groups, ebb and flow in densely choreographed episodes.

Elite Syncopations is as shallow as Dante Sonata is deep. Scott Joplin's rags are as insubstantial as Liszt's piano work is monumental, but this is still a masterpiece, though one from a different world. Dressed in outrageous costumes, seemingly inspired by the counter of a sweet shop, the dancers strut and twirl, coyly, teasingly, sexily, in a series of hilarious responses to Joplin's music - played on stage by the similarly dressed band. The highlight is a duet between the tall Celine Gittens and the tiny Kosuke Yamamoto, in which MacMillan, master of the passionate duet, uses his talent for intertwining bodies to hilarious effect, as Yamamoto tries to dance without being knocked out by his partner's swinging legs. It brought the house down, as it did when danced by Wayne Sleep and Vergie Derman on the first night in 1974.

I haven't room to say much about Kit Holder's Small Worlds. It's an elegant, abstract piece for three couples to Stravinsky, inspired by the works of Kandinsky. It has a slightly retro feel, and is an oasis of calm amid the frenetic works of two masters.

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