Not just for Christmas?

Since it was first published in 1936, Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes has cast a spell on its readers, sparking in them a love of theatre that for some would last a lifetime. It tells the story of three adopted sisters growing up in a boarding house in 1930s London, who have been adopted by an eccentric old palaeontologist and left in the care of his niece while he travels the world. Partly out of financial necessity, they end up attending a stage school run by an imposing Russian ballet teacher – and rest is literary history.

The book is an integral part of many people’s childhood memories; less a novel than a rite of passage. A friend is planning her Christmas travel around a trip to see the show and I suspect she’s not alone in this. It’s the kind of book parents want to pass on to their children, so popular that it has never fallen out of print.

It must be a daunting task to adapt something so beloved for the stage, but the National Theatre is attempting it this winter, with a new stage production opening just in time for Christmas. The stage version is being directed by Katy Rudd — who previously directed Neil Gaiman’s "The Ocean at the End of the Lane", translating his fantastical world to the stage in a way that was as thrilling for adults as it was for children.

Streatfeild’s novel has been adapted for the stage by Australian playwright Kendall Feaver, who won the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s most prestigious playwriting prize, for her play "The Almighty Sometimes" in 2015. This isn’t her first literary adaptation – she won plaudits in her native Australia for her adaption of Miles Franklin’s classic novel My Brilliant Career for Belvoir Theatre Company in 2020 – but that doesn’t make the task any less challenging.

The National’s version is the first major stage adaptation and as such there’s a lot riding on it, both for audiences with treasured memories of the book – and for the theatre

Given so much of the story revolves around dance, the movement is just as integral to the storytelling and Rudd is working with choreographer Ellen Kane, who previously worked on James Graham’s "Dear England", to bring the world of the dance academy to life. Melanie-Joyce Bermudez, Grace Saif and Daisy Sequerra will play the three Fossil sisters.

This isn’t the first attempt to dramatise the novel. There has been more than one TV adaptation, including a 1970s BBC series and a 2007 TV movie starring Emma Watson. In 2020, musical theatre star and author Carrie Hope Fletcher published Into the Spotlight, a 21st-century update of the novel with the endorsement of Streatfeild’s estate. The National’s version is the first major stage adaptation and as such there’s a lot riding on it, both for audiences with treasured memories of the book – and for the theatre.

The National is splashing a lot of money on the show, which features set design by Frankie Bradshaw and costumes by Samuel Wyver, who created the impressive puppets for "The Ocean at the End of the Lane". While the National is obviously banking on it being a Christmas hit, there’s surely a hope the show will have a longer life as was the case with Rudd’s production of "Ocean", which transferred to the West End in 2021. The National’s production of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse was one of the most successful productions in the theatre’s history, for a time earning around £3m a year from its West End run, prompting then artistic director Nicholas Hytner to claim it was more profitable than the Spielberg film based on the same title. The theatre’s production of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was also a hit, transferring to the West End, hoovering up awards and touring widely. (The National’s recent musical production of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, adapted by Lucy Kirkwood, didn’t fare quite so well, but you can’t win them all).

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Rudd made it sound like she understood what made the novel so resonant, and why people kept coming back to it. “It’s a post-colonial text, but doesn’t know it is,” she explained in the piece, as she explored all the themes she hoped to draw out.

Any stage production is going to have to capture the sense of wonder that so entranced generation after generation of readers. That’s obviously no easy task, but given the track record of the creative team – and the National for that matter – we can expect something magical.

Ballet Shoes is at the National Theatre until 22nd February 2025.