I have been reviewing Ballet Central’s graduate student shows for ten years, always with interest, sometimes with excitement. I have to say that this was not a vintage year, but there were some delights among the eight short pieces presented. They began with Pas de Six from Giselle, an extended version of what’s known as the Peasant pas de Deux. It didn’t go well, with many wobbles and barely-achieved landings. Of the six, Ryan Goscinski looked a nice dancer, and maintained this impression throughout the evening.

Things immediately improved with David Nixon’s specially commissioned Song of St Andrew to Philip Feeney’s beautiful work for wordless soprano. This is a lyrical duet, very well danced by Danielle Stanforth and Carlos Salcedo de Zarraga. Stanforth wore a wonderful, pleated, art deco-style dress that swung so beautifully as she danced that it became an additional part of the choreography.

But what you’re trying to spot is a future star, and hopes seemed dim until after the first interval, when a truly riveting presence arrived on the stage in the form of Nicole Kabera. Her looks are so striking that you have to ask whether you are being taken in by them, or whether she can actually dance. Answer; yes, she most certainly can.

Six dancers take part in Basse Danse, which has a medieval folk dance feel to it, including the two excellent boys already mentioned, but Kabera simply steals the show. A cast of ten made a nice job of Sara Matthews’s Knot Garden, with Philip Feeney threatening to burst the tiny piano at the seams in a virtuoso performance, and the show ended with I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire, a romp set in the 1930s, much reminiscent of Ashton’s Grand Tour, featuring film stars, schoolgirls, cricketers, a vicar, a ‘lonely lady’ and a waiter – Jordi Arnau Rubio – who knocked off an impressive spinning solo holding a glass on a tray. It was good to see the cast having fun. Ballet Central are at The Corn Exchange, Newbury, on May 20 (01635 522733).