I recoreded this movie ages ago but only got around to watchng it recently - how I wish I had watched it sooner.
I used to do ballet lessons and have always been fascinated by the life a dancer leads but this film really debunks the myths that it is all glamour and froth and also gave me much more insight into the life that Dame Margot Fonteyn lead. The only thing I really knew about her was that she danced with Nureyev and there was a large age difference but it didn't show on the stage. I had no idea that her husband had been shot nor that he was an ambassador.
The costume design was by
Amy Roberts whose other films and television work include:
Upstairs Downstairs and
Brassed Off and many telemovies. Being born in 1949 would have made her about 10 when the movie is set - and you can see that she shows all the different fashions of the period (Margot is very conservative whereas Nureyev is clearly bohemian).
Here is the summary from
IMBD:
"At the age of forty Dame Margot Fonteyn is considered to be past her
best as a prima ballerina and Ninette de Valois is reducing her roles at
the Royal Ballet. Then the exciting young Russian dancer Rudolf
Nureyev, a recent defector to the West, comes into her life and her bed
and revitalizes her career. Frederick Aashton creates a new ballet for
them and they become the golden couple of the ballet world. However,
Margot is married to Roberto 'Tito' Arias, a Panamanian politician of
dubious repute who is not sympathetic to her calling and is probably
faithless. When he is shot and paralyzed for life Margot must carry on
dancing well into her sixties in order to pay for his costly treatment
though she still collaborates with Rudolf in the occasional ballet."
So here is to a week on buns, pearls and red lippy.
