L'Heure Exquise, Vidy Theatre, Lausanne

Happy memories are made of this

You can't keep Gielgud women off stage. Maina Gielgud, former ballerina (and – not altogether incidentally – niece of Sir John), thought she had stopped dancing for good some 15 years ago. Since then she has been quite busy enough directing major companies, mounting her own versions of the classics, and becoming much in demand as a coach. But she had reckoned without her one-time boss Maurice Béjart, who decided that he wanted to put on a show with a dancer no longer young, and persuaded Maina that she simply had to make a comeback for the occasion.

And that ain't all. Why stick at only one generation of the family? So Béjart (himself 75, by the way, and still going strong) grabbed Maina's mother, Zita Gordon-Gielgud, a Hungarian actress and film star back in the 1930s, to resume at the age of 91 an acting role in the ballet Le Concours which he has just remounted for the Ballet of the Paris Opera; thus leading her daughter to remark enviously, "I've never been a guest star at the Opéra Garnier."

On the other hand Maina Gielgud, a mere 57 and certainly not looking it, actually puts her toe shoes on again for her role in L'heure exquise, which Béjart describes as his variations on Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, justified by analogy with what Brahms did to Haydn or Chopin to Mozart. The heroine has here become a dancer remembering her career, and the mound in which she is buried is a pile of what looks like a lifetime's supply of ballet shoes. This heap opens up so that Gielgud can dance as well as speak – and the man in her life turns out to be her former partner.

Martyn Fleming in that role (another ex-dancer) gives powerful support dramatically as well as physically, and provides some heavy, rough movement to contrast with Gielgud's smooth, fluent delicacy. But, true to Beckett's concept, this is essentially a portrait of one woman. Béjart has, with approval of the Beckett estate, considerably curtailed and amended the text, but there is still quite a lot of speaking, which Gielgud does most clearly and meaningfully in French for the production at the attractive small Vidy Theatre, Lausanne. (The show will go into English for the planned Beckett festival in Australia next year, and perhaps for a London transfer, too.)

You don't expect 32 fouettés in this context, and you don't get them, but Gielgud includes fast turns across the stage, some jolly, almost jazzy jigging, bold balances, and a deal of small, precise footwork, besides eloquently expressive arm movements. What her feet must feel, cribbed, cabined and confined again after so long a respite, I shudder to think, but any problems that she may have certainly do not show; all the movement is simply part of bringing the role to life and giving it the sense of happiness Beckett mentioned.

To support the action, Béjart has chosen a montage of pieces by Webern, Mahler and Mozart, but he lets much of the action happen in silence, apart from the spoken words. And for the very end, rather than let Gielgud get away with acting in two genres, speech and movement, he gets her to sing, too, an apposite snatch from The Merry Widow. Not just a comeback, but an advance besides. Happy days.