Well, darlings, itās been another whirlwind of a day in the world of ballet! It's 24th March 1999, and if you're not aware, we are all about to be treated to a rather unexpected performance, featuring not just tutus, but tutus of a very unusual variety! Youāll just have to wait and see!
Let me paint you a picture, darlings: imagine the usual suspects of a classic ballet: a beautifully lit stage, a stunning corps de ballet all lined up in their, yes, you guessed it, glorious **tutus**. But this isnāt your average ballet. Youāve got to hold onto your feather boas and your sequined bags, dear reader, because it is all about to get just a little bit bizarre.
What is a ballet performance without a grand pas de deux, eh? However, in this case, we've got not one, but two stars: Mr. Barnaby āBinkyā Battenfield, a retired former dancer who has not yet embraced his midlife crisis in any particular fashion. Then we have our dazzling prima ballerina, the one and only Mademoiselle Francine āFrankieā Fifi.
Here's the juicy part: Mr. Battenfield isn't wearing the standard tutu you might expect a male ballet star to wear, oh no, darlings. It's pink! And itās absolutely covered in pink glitter! And guess what? Frankie is also in pink - in fact, she's rocking a pink tutu too. Only her tutu has black polka dots!
Apparently Binky decided heād had enough of the standard tutu, well, the ānot pinkā one, at least, and he's all about getting in touch with his feminine side this evening. Frankie has just about gone into shock ā the polka dots weren't planned ā it turns out the costume designer's been going a bit, shall we say, āpunkā recently. She has decided to mix it up.
The crowd's buzzing - a sea of glittering jewels and fluffy boa-adorned necks, I must add - and they can't help but titter at the sight of Binky trying to take centre stage, trying to avoid being the pinkest object in the whole entire venue. Well, they arenāt the only ones to say that they were rather surprised!
Binky is not very good. He is trying to pull off some rather ambitious lifts, with the grandest of gestures, which makes Frankie look, even by her usually spectacular standards, just, well, beautiful! What an angel, right?!
The ballet continues ā although Binky keeps knocking over the scenery which has thrown Francine's timing out, to the amusement of the whole auditorium! What a funny ballet this has turned out to be, but the dancing and the grace are incredible!
Anyway, despite his total lack of coordination, Mr. Battenfield somehow manages to finish the show (even though he tripped over a very ornate chair) in his fabulous, and pink, tutu. The applause at the end was a cacophony and he really did have to take multiple curtain calls! And that is when we, and the rest of the world, saw something completely and utterly extraordinary!
It turns out there's more to the story, you know, as Iām sure you suspect! There wasnāt just one, or two, or even three, but five pink tutus in the world - one of them actually in possession of our very own Mr. Battenfield! So we must thank this former ballet dancer - a little bit āgrandma chicā, you could say, a man with an appetite for āthe glitter' - and thank Mademoiselle Francine āFrankieā Fifi who has pulled it off - once again, dear reader, with all her exquisite grace. The entire performance has gone down as ālegendā!
And in case you haven't gathered it yet , darlings, this is truly a unique day for ballet history ā the most unexpected twist I think anyone in the business has ever seen - not since our beloved ballerina was born and then took to the stage in the world-renowned dance company, Les Ballets du XXe siĆØcle.
What happened to Mr Battenfield?- Binky was āpromotedā - oh dear! A rather sad state of affairs. To say that he became quite an interesting topic would be a total understatement, but alas, after such a bizarre incident, this grand stage of a ballet just had to do the āusualā thing and try to recover! The next show featured dancers with standard (non-pink, non-polkadot) tutus - the usual routine we have grown so accustomed to. Poor Mr. Binky was given the most minor parts of a show - never a star role. In fact, Binky disappeared from the dance world - a real mystery but I think I can solve that ā¦ (it has nothing to do with his choice of tutud) Oh, how much the fashion world missed a āgreat man!ā
Frankie kept the five pink tutus ā with the black polka dot one at the forefront. There was something just quite so fabulous about it! To think that her and Binky pulled off a truly unforgettable evening, even if a touch too bizarre! What a pair they were - that show - well it will remain one of my all-time faves, a moment to tell and re-tell - well a show that you wonāt ever forget - or, as the kids are saying - thatās āiconicā - not bad for an evening in 1999. But who knows, perhaps Binky will make his return?! Itās good to know that āfabulousā is never out of fashion - as it turns out!