Netflix’s latest teen series pirouettes confidently onto screens, a cross between a girls’ magazine yarn and the hit 80s film – with a dark, contemporary edge
I remember when ballet was all about bucking up, scraping shillings together for shoes and sharing ribbons, with parts going to whoever had the most vivid eyes and bounciest hair. Simpler times. Of course, that may be because my sole exposure to the world of ballet was via Noel Streatfeild’s prewar masterpiece Ballet Shoes. Looking back, I can see that the novel’s tale of Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil’s trials and tribulations at the Madame Fidolia School of Plucky Young Things, wherein hard work, honesty and the occasional intervention from Nana solved most problems, probably wasn’t an accurate portrayal of the world of elite dancers, even in 1936.
It certainly wasn’t preparation enough for Tiny Pretty Things, the new Netflix series – adapted from books by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton – about the gruelling, ruthless, hypercompetitive world of a Manhattan dance academy dedicated to turning out Pavlovas and Nijinskys by the dozen, no matter how many stress fractures, cortisol injections and binge-purge cycles it takes. Though the necrotic toenails are perhaps the worst. If I never see one of those being peeled off again in full-colour closeup it will be too soon.