Ashley Shaw talks ahead of The Red Shoes at Birmingham Hippodrome

The ballet world is a hard place to survive in, even if you are extremely talented and the dedication and hard work required to succeed means that to float across a beautiful stage in layers of tulle, with an orchestra soaring around you remains a fantasy for most.

That said, one little girl who has made it and is about to grace the Birmingham Hippodrome stage with the incomparable Sir Matthew Bourne's dance company, New Adventures in The Red Shoes is Australian Ashley Shaw. I asked Ashley why she had chosen such a wonderful, but difficult career.

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"I started really young – I was just three when my mum took me to ballet lessons and I fell in love with it. Then when I was fifteen, I moved here all the way from Australia, to Birmingham actually to the Elmhurst school, "said Ashley.

"I committed to being a dancer very young and when I first saw New Adventures, at the Birmingham Hippodrome I thought, I just have to be in that company, I love their work and I am so luck to be working with them now."

She continued, "Matt has his very own technique and style which completely different within his repertoire as well. If you compare his productions of Edward Scissorhands and Carmen and then The Red Shoes, they are all so completely different and as a dancer it is so satisfying to be able to do so many different styles within his amazing choreography,"

Sir Matthew certainly has the unique ability to draw very strong emotions from his dancers that obviously come over in their performances. I asked Ashley what he is like to work for and what other roles she would like to dance for him.

"Matt's really brilliant at drawing emotion out. We do a lot of research into our roles, like an actor would do and I think that really helps you to invest in your character. What happens to you on stage, you really feel it. There is one moment in the show when they take the shoes off me and say I can't be a dancer anymore and every night it genuinely breaks my heart. He is very good at giving a back story and explaining what we are doing and why we are doing it, rather than just giving you the steps. He is an amazing director, as well as a choreographer; that is what he is particularly very special at," said Ashley.

The Red Shoes was written by master fairytale teller Hans Christian Anderson, but is the storyline of this version based on his original tale or the film version? Ashley told me it is set in 1948, but has a modern ballet within the show.

"It is based on the film," said Ashley, "but with aspects of the fairytale too, so there are a lot of layers. We have the same tragic ending and then we do a ballet within the show, called The Red Shoes which is kind of a modern version of the fairytale, with a pimp and drug dealer luring her with the shoes, which makes it much darker."

The movie version in which Moria Shearer portrays Victoria Paige, the tragic heroine who cannot stop dancing once the infamous ballet slippers are in place, remains a classic even today, despite being almost 70 years old. Dance has evolved so much since Shearer played Victoria. Ashley told me how she felt about stepping into such an iconic role.

"I definitely used Moria Shearer as my main inspiration for this role because I think she portrayed it so brilliantly and it is so well loved that to go too drastically out of the way would disappoint a lot of people. That said we are not a traditional ballet company and she was a classical ballet dancer. I certainly get a lot of comparisons and she is hard person to live up to. But lots of people have said lots of lovely things about me and I am really proud to help her legacy to live on," said Ashley.

Ashley shares the role with her colleague and friend, Cordelia Braithwaite. I believe they are both outstanding stars of the company, but very different dancers.

"With Matt's work there are always at least two people who play every role and it is really lovely to collaborate and also to get the chance to watch the show as well. There are so many things you see and you think, Oh that's not working or I am going live that moment up a bit more, so it enhances everyone's performance," she said.

New Adventures' pieces are renowned for spectacular scenery and stunning lighting effects to create the mood and atmosphere of whichever story Sir Matthew chooses to tell through dance. Ashley was excited to tell us what we can expect from The Red Shoes;

"The lighting, the scenery and the costumes are possibly the most stunning work New Adventures technical team has done. It is very 1940's, with beautiful costumes; a feast for the eyes. We have had so many people commenting on things like lighting which often get forgotten about. It is really well designed and is really beautiful," she said.

"The music is stunning. Matt chose Bernard Herman's lesser known pieces as well as different pieces of music from different films and somehow it works really well as a collaborative score and he has managed to make it feel complete. It has amazing, emotional, moving, dramatic numbers which are wonderful to dance to. Lots of people leave the theatre humming, which is great," she laughed.

I asked Ashley what other roles she would like to dance for Sir Matthew.

"I would do any role with Matt, my second job was Cinderella, I was the cover and it was the first time I ever went on in a principal role and I would love to do that again. There are so many I would love to do again and Kim in The Car Man which was really nice. I am happy to revisit roles and do whatever he wants to offer me," she said.

Now there's a lady who's very happy in her work.

Catch The Red Shoes at the Birmingham Hippodrome from February 7-11. Visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com or call 0844 338 5000 for tickets.

By Alison Norton