NORTHERN Ballet Theatre (NBT) has always put as much emphasis on theatre as ballet.

In the past, you could have called the company's style wordless storytelling. Now, in the British premiere of a work first staged by artistic director David Nixon in his days at BalletMet Columbus, words are seamlessly introduced, as omnipresent narrator Marquise de Merteuil looks back on her monstrous/mischievous/manipulative younger days.

The Marquise, portrayed by a non-dancing Patricia Doyle, stalks the stage throughout, initially reluctant to be drawn to her past, but pressurised by the questioning of a persistent, disembodied voice. "There were letters...and people played games," she says, enervated at the memory of those decadent days before the French Revolution.

Doyle's Marquise will go on to prompt action by word and deed, passing letters, even physically orchestrating the movements of protagonists, like a more malevolent Puck. When there is letter writing to be done, she will fill in the detail, her choreographed reportage giving the hot and bothered production a fast-moving running time.

The Playhouse stage is smaller than the usual NBT location of the Leeds Grand Theatre, the corps de ballet is cut to six, and Nixon's set design for the aristocratic French setting appears to have been cut from the same reduced cloth. That is the only disappointment, because everything else is wickedly good, the most erotic NBT show since Carmen, taking all the sexual power, cruelty and aristocratic deceit to sensuous heights.

The costumes are a picture too.

Set to Vivaldi's bodice-ripping music, Nixon's breathtaking, dramatic choreography curtails the (high-society) ensemble work to a minimum.

It serves as a breather from the friction and frisson of the pas de deux built around the spats and sexual games of idling aristocrats Vicomete de Valmont (Jimmy Orrante) and the Marquise (Natalie Leftwich).

Each pas de deux and the occasional mnage a trois utterly captures the essence of the relationships: Valmont's casual brutality with the virginal Cecile (Georgian Roberts); his seduction and then reduction of Madame de Tourvel (Chiaki Nagao, in the production's outstanding scenes); and the thrust and counter-thrust of his labyrinthine battle of wits, wills and wiles with the Marquise.

Horny and tactile, these Dangerous Liaisons are a volcanic, voluptuous, visceral delight.

Box office: 0113 213 7700.

Updated: 11:16 Monday, September 06, 2004