Dance: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol, Northern Ballet Theatre, Grand Theatre, Leeds (0113 245 9351) 7 Dec, 2.30pm & 7.30pm, pounds 6-pounds 23, concessions availab le

Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Happily for theatregoers everywhere, he still won't lie down, and lives on this season in Northern Ballet Theatre's A Christmas Carol. Ballet directors, positively lusting after bums on seats, have always been willing to turn inoffensive works of literature into balletic extravaganzas. It pays the rent as audiences seem to go through the winter in an uncritical fog - maybe the cold cuts the blood supply to the brain.

Soaked in brandy, dusted with glitter and decked with holly, NBT's A Christmas Carol encapsulates everything that the most junior window dresser understands by Yuletide Cheer. We may think (if we don't think too hard) that Dickens's morality fable is a jolly Christmas romp, but the story is topped and tailed by Scrooge's terrifying visions of his former partner and of the Yuletide to come, in which his own funeral is a matter for local celebration. Dickens knew what he was doing: take a sickly sweet Christmas confection and add a strong measure of spirits.