The Nutcracker, Coliseum, London

A right cracker for Christmas

After two important new productions on tour this past autumn, English National Ballet is now giving its regular Christmas and New Year London season. We reviewed the premieres when they happened; now is the chance to see how the dancers are settling into their new repertoire. And the answer is, pretty well, thank you. This is a company on the way up.

For one thing (and rather important, given the number of performances it gets), the new Nutcracker comes off a good deal better than when first given at Bristol. Not much has been changed, but details have been cleaned up, the ensemble scenes benefit from everyone being more familiar with them, and the Coliseum stage, with its good sightlines, helps ballets look their best.

I enjoyed it a lot more this time round. The cast I caught included a very likeable Drosselmeyer from Gary Avis: witty and not camp. He was even rather romantic partnering young Lisa Probert (a sweet, fresh Clara) in the Waltz of the Flowers. Vladislav Bubnov makes a dashing Prince; but Begona Cao hadn't quite got to grips with the Sugar Plum Fairy, but she is such a lovely dancer that it can only be a matter of time.

Even more enjoyable was the evening of one-act ballets given to full and enthusiastic houses. The three works chosen were all well worth seeing, but so different that I wonder what most drew in the crowds. Could it be the sheer diversity? That, after all, is the point of such mixed bills.

The new production among them was Mark Morris's Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes. Now that the popular Morris has at last allowed two British companies to dance works by him, English National is in the happy position of not only having a more beautiful and satisfying example than the Royal Ballet's Gong, but also dancing its choice with more consistent excellence. Drink To Me is a sequence of pure classical dances, flavoured with Morris's inflections and phrasing. Although created in 1988 for an American Ballet Theatre cast including such stars as Baryshnikov and Bocca, it is an ensemble piece that gives all 12 dancers demanding solo and duet work.

ENB puts out two complete casts who dance alternate performances, and both are made up of all ranks within the troupe, chosen by Morris's regisseur Tina Fehlandt. The amazing thing is that there isn't a weak link among them. Individuals may catch your eye, but then suddenly someone almost unknown will join in on an equal level. The dances are inspired by 13 pieces selected from Virgil Thomson's Etudes (with Jonathan Still the excellent solo pianist), and Morris catches wonderfully the music's varied qualities.

This is a marvellous ballet, marvellously done, and it shows the quality of Christopher Hampson's Double Concerto, another pure dance piece given alongside, that it holds up to the comparison. Every time I watch it, I am more impressed by the imagination of Hampson's choreography, the flair with which he matches Poulenc's music and also shows off the dance skills and stylishness of his several featured soloists.

Kenneth MacMillan's The Rite of Spring is of quite a different genre. The Stravinsky score comes over powerfully from an augmented orchestra, and dancewise, the main attraction is the truly impressive dancing of the large corps de ballet: intense, exact, vigorous, and enhanced by the apt designs of Yolanda Sonnabend. Among several solo women who bravely danced themselves to death at the end, Joanne Clarke was perhaps the most vivid.

So many of the dancers successfully took on new roles, or maintained their eminence in familiar parts, that I cannot possibly name all those who deserve it. Let me single out just two recent recruits. Elena Glurdjidze, born in Tbilisi, whom I first noticed in St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty last season, has joined as a principal; the warmth and musicality of her dancing in Drink To Me and Double Concerto leave me impatient to see more.

Cameron McMillan, from New Zealand, arrived last year as a junior soloist, but from the elegant virtuosity he displays, I guess it will not be long before he is ranked higher – especially as he proves, as Father in The Nutcracker, that he can act, too.

'The Nutcracker', to 4 Jan (020-7632 8300)