Royal Ballet’s revival of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée is a complete joy

As the autumnal nights get darker, La Fille mal gardée radiates sunlight in ballet form. This countryside comedy by the Royal Ballet’s late founder choreographer, Frederick Ashton, overflows with heart and invention, exuberantly danced by the company at Covent Garden. The harvest is in, maypole ribbons flutter, and the young lovers are reunited. There’s even a real live pony.

Premiering at the Royal Opera House in 1960, though drawing on older versions of the story, Fille was an instant classic. Lise wants to marry the handsome farmer Colas, rather than the rich suitor her fond but ambitious mother has picked out for her. Around the central romantic comedy, Ashton weaves in rich images of rurality and community. Drawing on English folk dancing, his steps are full of fleet footwork, flowing lines, and a sense of shared celebration.

On opening night, Marianela Nuñez was a radiant Lise, with dancing as bright as her smile. Stepping out of the farmhouse on a summer morning, she stretches her arms, with a ripple of movement that seems to come right from her heart, out through her fingertips and beyond. Nuñez brings a giddy delight to her bounding leaps and intricate footwork. She has a natural, teasing chemistry with Vadim Muntagirov’s Colas.

Muntagirov, a dancer of princely elegance, makes a boyish and energetic farmer. He’s splendid in the stop-start rhythms of the harvest solo: he can crouch and bound up again with buoyant ease. His partnering is tenderly secure, helping Nuñez soar upward and float back to the ground.

As Widow Simone, Lise’s mother, Thomas Whitehead starts rather stern but warms into sweetness. When Lise gets around her mum by encouraging her to do a clog dance, it’s clearly a beloved party piece, something the onstage community recognises and looks forward to. Whitehead is serenely happy in it, gleeful in the ebullient rhythms. As Alain, the rich, dim suitor, Luca Acri brings crisp dancing and vivid spontaneity – he’s in his own world, and always in the moment.

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In this revival, the upsets of the last act are played lightly. We all know there will be a happy ending, but I prefer it when the characters are less sure of it; their vulnerability brings greater depth to the joy.

But there’s plenty of joy to go round. The corps dancing is airy but robust, with swaying torsos and eager jumps in the harvest dances. As the dancers loop and circle through Ashton’s lovely patterns, the whole stage glows with perpetual sunshine.

La Fille mal gardée runs until 9 June 2026