Peter Mallek is a former Austrian dancer who, after an illustrious international career, formed his own company in 1980, and named it after his home town. Now Vienna Festival Ballet is celebrating its 30th anniversary, which is a terrific achievement for a company of 16 dancers who tirelessly tour the classics around Europe for seven months a year. Despite its name, the company is predominantly made up of English dancers, but with four Japanese ballerinas, (what company now doesn’t have its quota from Japan?), and in the lead Samantha Camejo, who hails from Brazil.

This production is a fine example of how to use limited forces to best effect. Nearly everybody doubles up, but they manage to put ten swans on the stage, all but Odette in ankle length ‘romantic tutus’, much softer in outline.

They are a talented cast, and Camejo is a mysterious, glamorous creature who acts out the long mime scene beautifully. Phil King is every inch a Prince, and a very good actor as well. I liked his relaxed behaviour during his act one birthday party — an easy host, chatting to all the girls, and constantly offering them drinks.

In any Swan Lake you have to wait till act three to see whether the Prince can really dance, and yes, he made an excellent job of the demanding choreography. As in early productions of the ballet, Odile is played by a different dancer. It makes one wonder whether the Prince is short-sighted to accept this brash, different-looking interloper as his lakeside love, but Melanie Cox makes the most of her role, and knocks off all 32 fouettes with apparent ease.

This two-dancer set-up allows the distraught Odette to rush on to the stage after Siegfried has made the calamitous vow — much more dramatic than the usual stand-in flapping her unhappy wings at the window! As the quirky, bounding, yet deeply concerned jester, Carl Hale is a delight throughout.

Vienna Festival Ballet are back at The Mill on October 21 and 22 with The Sleeping Beauty.