After a double dose last week of dance for comic effect — in the Big Ballet and The Trocks both at the Wycombe Swan — it made a change on Saturday to head north to Chipping Norton for two hours of the serious stuff.

Not, I hasten to add, that there was anything po-faced in the work of Ballet Central, whose annual visit to Chippy is always such a delight. This is a company composed of final year students at the Central School of Ballet out to show what they have learned in their gruelling studies and to gain touring experience in preparation for their professional careers.

This year there was a pool of 36 dancers involved, representing eight countries. The standard of work was high throughout, despite occasional obvious signs of nerves that might have been expected at only the second venue in the company’s progress around the country that will last well into July. (Dance fans should note they will be in this area again on May 19 at the Corn Exchange, Newbury — newburyspringfestival. org.uk) The Act I Pas de Trois from Swan Lake featured fine work from Zoe Arshamian, Maria Grozova and William Simmons who also shone (with Tony- Michelle Dent, Elizabeth Savage and Luke Divall) in the Pas de Six from Sleeping Beauty.

These and other familiar works contrasted with new pieces, including Christopher Bruce’s affecting take on Arvo Pärt’s piano composition Für Alina (with Zoe Arshamian, Lisha Chin, Nicole Craddock, Lottie Murphy, Luke Divall and David Pallant), which appears to locate the action among the shabbily dressed occupants of an orphanage or possibly a refugee camp.

Much happier scenes are shown (above) in Phillip Aiden’s Swing Time, to a score by Duke Elllington, with Arshamian (a busy young lady!), Nicole Craddock, Lottie Murphy, Jamie Bradley, Luke Divall and Leon Moran.