Ballet Grigorovich, Mayflower Theatre , Southampton

Forget Moscow and its Bolshoi Ballet, where Yuri Grigorovich was the imperious director for 30 years until fired in 1995. The Ballet Grigorovich now making its first tour of Britain is a young company funded by the south Russian city of Krasnodar, way down near the Black Sea. The dancers, aged reputedly from 19 to 25, work well in ensembles, and some of the soloists show talent. Grigorovich is quoted as dreaming of a vehicle to develop young dancers, but whether the roles he has chosen for them from his repertoire are ideal for that is quite another matter.

The two works brought this time were both shown here before by the Bolshoi, and in comparison these inexperienced casts must look outclassed. The main offering is Spartacus, an uneven ballet originally made for a handful of unique performers who have never really been matched (even the illustrious Irek Mukhamedov, best of recent interpreters, didn't completely live up to them).

In the cast I saw in Southampton, the women soloists coped better than the men, and Anna Zhukova proved quite touching as the heroine Phrygia. But Dayong Yin as Spartacus, leader of the slaves' revolt, and even more Nikolay Morschakov as the Roman commander Crassus, simply didn't have the maturity or forcefulness for those impossibly demanding roles.

Dayong Yin looked much more at home as Romeo in the week's other offering, and might have done even better with a Juliet more convincing than pert little Elena Kniazkova. But Grigorovich's production is decidedly quaint. The music is heavily cut. Personally, I don't complain about this, but is it fair to either Prokofiev or the spectators?

On top of that, the action is curiously reordered, with episodes and even characters eliminated, yet the choreographer finds time to add several solos for Tybalt (Sergei Barannikov, not bad, if overparted dramatically), Mercutio and Paris. I wonder, too, why so much happens on a raised platform, stage rear. Olessya Khamitskaya as the Nurse makes much of the show's one brilliant coup, announcing Juliet's supposed suicide offstage, but has little else to do.

Raymond Gubbay, has brought not only nearly 60 dancers but an orchestra of 45. True, that's on the small side for these two big scores, which may explain a raucous touch at times, especially in the Khachaturian piece. But, interestingly, their conductor is Alexander Lavreniuk, once a notable solo dancer in character roles with the Bolshoi, whose combination of dance experience and conservatoire training brings support to the company.

Birmingham Hippodrome, to 2 Nov; Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 4-9 Nov