Adam Cooper, ballet's leading sex symbol who smouldered his way to world fame in Matthew Bourne's stunning re-working of the Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake, has followed Bourne's lead and moved into musicals.

Bourne's choreographic skills have always demonstrated a strongly theatrical as well as dance vision. Not just in Swan Lake, where the traditional delicate female swans in tutus were replaced by half-naked men representing the dark and dangerous side of the wild birds, but also in a Cinderella set in the Blitz, and successful productions of My Fair Lady and South Pacific.

Now Cooper, Bourne's biggest star, is appearing in and has choreographed a classic stage musical, Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre.

As its name implies, On Your Toes has a very strong dance element, particularly in the sequence to the music of "Slaughter On 10th Avenue." Cooper appears with another ex-Royal Ballet star, Irek Mukhamedov.

The production has earned superlative reviews; with any luck, On Your Toes will transfer to the West End at some point. But, in any case, fans of On Your Toes director Paul Kerryson will be able to see another of his productions of much-loved musicals when he stages Stephen Sondheim's Follies at the Royal Festival Hall in August.

—By Paul Webb Theatrenow