The Royal Ballet's principal dancer kepy a fascinating and wittily entertaining diary of the company's work during the year of the Covent Garden closure. A Member of The Arts Council, a nutritionist and programme director of the new Clore Studio, she discusses her book Dancing Away and her insiders view of The Royal Opera House with writer Rupert Christiansen. Christiansen is the author of Visitors: Culture Shock in 19th Century Britain. The last chapter deals with the status of ballet and the foreign ballerina in the late nineteenth century London.