Like a breath of bracing Yorkshire air, Northern Ballet’s brand-new Gentleman Jack swept into Sadler’s Wells, bringing a truly refreshing new narrative to the stage: the story of the ‘first modern lesbian’, Anna Lister aka ‘Gentleman Jack’, whose life, work and loves in the early nineteenth century were so memorably brought to wider attention by the 2019 BBC historical drama of the same name. Northern Ballet director Federico Bonelli has cleverly identified a local story – the company’s home is in Leeds – which manages to place itself firmly in the strong company tradition of popular narrative dance work as well as feeling utterly contemporary in its celebration of lesbian love.
For the choreography, he turned to established dance-maker Annabelle Lopez Ochoa who has created a fast-paced and readable galop through elements of Lister’s life as revealed when her coded diaries were deciphered in the late 1980s. Ochoa’s movement palette may be somewhat restricted – it resembles that of Cathy Marston – but it is firmly rooted in classical ballet to which she has added her own inflections and quirks. The result may not be the most individual in terms of style, but it is eminently satisfying, and she makes full use of the abilities of the company’s dancers, who comprise a talented ensemble. Clare Croft’s work as Dramaturg means that scenes are short and to the point, the narrative more a series of vignettes through which Lister is herself the linking element than a detailed exploration of character and motivation – the whole performance is over in 105 minutes, including one interval.
The stage is, in essence, bare, but cleverly if sparsely populated by items of furniture and huge book cabinets which turn to reveal ingenious screens which evoke the outdoors, trees, skies and, at one stage, the streets of Paris. Costumes establish time and place in silhouette, but are shot through with modernity. Lighting is highly effective, and the use of projected writing onto the stage in the short scenes evoking Lister’s diary writing into which she poured the details of her life, including her then taboo sexuality, is masterful.
Peter Salem has provided a brand-new score, which serves it purpose but swings between forms and styles. As an accompaniment to the stage action, it works, but there is some uncertainty, and some of the admittedly brief sections are too dirge-like to give much pleasure. However, it matches the quirkiness of both the narrative and the choreography, and in so doing, ensures that it is a valid element of the overall concept.
Gemma Coutts created the title role of Anne Lister/Gentleman Jack in Leeds in March and opened the company’s run of performances in London. Still a corps de ballet member, she inhabits the part with total conviction, bringing feisty swagger while never quite relinquishing her femininity. She does not make the character necessarily likeable – Lister, as we are all, was a person with her flaws – but we empathise and she is highly successful in making us believe in who and what she is. Her dancing is precise and notable for its clarity, and she brings great tenderness and eroticism to her two pas de deux with Saeka Shirai and Rachael Gillespie. Shirai plays Mariana Lawton, a married woman who is Lister’s great love but who chooses conventional life with her husband over her female lover; her dancing was characterised by great nuance and emotion. Gillespie was Ann Walker, a young heiress who becomes Lister’s partner and with whom she defiantly lives and loves. Their coming together was finely drawn, and her growing realisation and acceptance of her nature was tellingly portrayed.
The only unconvincing note in the whole work is their ‘symbolic wedding’ towards the end of the ballet in which they both appear in bridal veils and for which Lister wears pointe shoes for the only occasion (she otherwise wears ‘men’s’ ballet slippers). Lister and Walker did indeed take the sacrament together at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, now celebrated as the birthplace of lesbian marriage in Britain, but this balletic version strikes a strange note in what is otherwise a well-judged concept.
It is not, however, enough to derail the entire enterprise, a genuinely new and fresh ballet subject which deftly uses real historical characters to create something utterly contemporary. The message of Gentleman Jack is clear and it is a proud celebration of what was once seen as unacceptable; that it achieves in its purpose without descending into preachy lecturing is an impressive feat in itself.
