Fire & Fury from Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome - review

Birmingham Royal Ballet looked back at the roots of ballet with a revival of The King Dances and also brought matters right up to date with vibrant new work Ignite in the satisfying Fire & Fury double bill, which is now touring after its short run at the company's home theatre.

Choreographed by the company's celebrated director David Bintley, The King Dances was first performed in 2015, obviously a favourite project for the dance pioneer who is stepping down from the BRB after 24 years at the end of this season.

It is a stately affair paying tribute to King Louis XIV of France's lavish court entertainment, Le Ballet de la nuit.

That event in 1653, in which the young monarch himself danced, is said to have lasted in excess of 12 hours, whereas Bintley's majestic vignette clocks in at a sensible 38 minutes.

This nocturnal journey from twilight to the dawn has a dream-like quality. Le Roi (the King) dances a pas de deux with Selene, la Lune, a silvery diaphanous Yijing Zhang.

Dressed in a night shirt as if roused from his slumbers, Max Maslen remains poised and suitably regal - even when being man-handled in a nightmare section where he encounters witches, demons, werewolves, and the powerful Tyrone Singleton as Le Diable himself.

Finally, the sovereign emerges in a blaze of golden light, like a rock star, as Le Roi Soleil - the Sun King - and the name stuck.

The flaming torches in The King Dances hinted at the blaze that was to follow the interval in Ignite, which was commissioned by Ballet Now, a co-production by BRB and Dutch National Opera and Ballet.

It is inspired by William Turner's 1835 painting The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, a work which seems to anticipate impressionism with its flurry of flames blurring into sky and the Thames. That conflagration destroyed the medieval palace of Westminster, which was replaced with Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin's existing building.

Spanish choreographer Juanjo Arques's Ignite is an exhilarating and incendiary 35-minute piece of modern dance. Members of the ensemble rush on and off stage, clad in yellow and reds for fire, blues and greys for smoke, water and sky, combining, entangling, in a turbulent, flickering inferno.

The movement was enhanced by Kate Whiley's dynamic, dramatic music, performed by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Martin Georgiev, and Tatyana van Walsum's moving wall of mirrors, which rose above the dancers to give a new perspective on the motions beneath.

There were dazzling performances by Celine Gittens and Brandon Lawrence as Fire, set against the cool fluidity of Delia Matthews as River, who combines in a duet with Mathias Dingman as Sky.

Both ballets impress but it was Ignite that I was left with a burning desire to see again.

• BRB will be back to perform festive favourite The Nutcracker, now as much a part of Christmas in Birmingham as the German market, from November 27 to December 13.