STAGE REVIEW: The Nutcracker/Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Hippodrome Theatre Birmingham.

SIR Peter Wright sat in his royal box, the regal birthday boy fondly gazing as his life-defining great creation once again unfolded across the Hippodrome stage.

Here was Zeus on his very own Mount Olympus, looking down as the mere mortals of his corps de ballet followed the master’s guiding hand, this man who had taken the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and guaranteed its immortality.

This was such a special night. Sir Peter was celebrating his 90th birthday and there was perhaps no greater gift for the great choreographer than to be the guest of honour on the first night of The Nutcracker’s run at the Birmingham Hippodrome.

Mind you, there were quite a few folds on the wrapping around this particular present, and that’s why we had to wait until well into the second half before Momoko Hirata’s Sugar Plum Fairy joined Joseph Caley’s Prince and performed a blistering pas de deux, one that had the master beaming with satisfaction.

Earlier, we had experienced the exquisite torment of anticipation in the knowledge that something wonderful was about to explode across the stage. And we most certainly were not disappointed.

Hirata and Caley are living, moving art forms, portraits in perfection that slowly but surely reveal myriad inner depths. Hirata’s beautifully clipped, precise style is perfectly matched by Caley’s sweeping statements of balletic intent, truly a marriage made in a Nutcracker heaven.

Meanwhile, Karla Doorbar is surely the most elfin Clara imaginable. She’s perfect for this classic story that first drew breath as a folk tale told around firesides in the depths of those icy European winters of long ago.

Doorbar brings a virginal innocence to the role, her sense of wonderment never waning for a single moment as she embarks on her fantastic journeys to fabulous lands and their even more fantastical inhabitants.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Payn does his usual fine job as the magician Drosselmeyer, a strange mix of fairground trickster and downright dodgy bloke who should most certainly never be let loose on the streets with a wand.

His various shenanigans are supremely complemented by Tzu-Chao Chou’s gloriously hyperactive Jack-in-the-Box, whose uniquely designed trousers ensure that he always has a spring in his step.

Nevertheless, there are many more treats in this Christmas cracker of a show, one in particular being Celine Gittens’ Arabian Dance, a sinuous and sensuous reptilian routine that elicited gasps of amazement from a Hippodrome audience that expects and always gets the best.

No wonder then that when the Midlands’ grand master of ballet joined the cast onstage, the house rose as one to pay homage. For this was a truly magnificent night, a brief period when time seemed to stand still and alchemy hung like incense in the air.

The Nutcracker runs at Birmingham's Hippodrome until Tuesday, December 13.

John Phillpott