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Margot Fonteyn
Margot Fonteyn
Apr 29, 2025 7:27 PM

Author:Meredith Daneman

Margot Fonteyn

Margot Fonteyn - born plain Peggy Hookham - was dreamed into existence by the architects of British ballet: Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton and Constant Lambert. Carried to fame on a wave of wartime patriotism, Margot's sense of duty rather than ambition propelled her forward. Yet her gifts were such that her pre-eminence would come to eclipse the careers of subsequent generations.Ballet is a fairytale world; if Margot, like the pure and poetic heroine of Swan Lake, was a natural Odette, she would also have to contend with virtue's raw shadow-side in the guise of Constant Lambert, Roberto Arias and Rudolph Nureyev - the men who, like Von Rothbart, were to take possession of her heart.

Reviews

Since I first got the soundtrack when it was released on cassette during the early nineties, I’ve come to appreciate it more and more... it is... a work of genius and a truly marvellous Doctor Who story.

—— Paul Clarke , Outpost Gallifrey

Ireland's number-one statesman.

—— Irish Post

Stuart Maconie is the best thing to come out of Wigan since the A58 to Bolton

—— Peter Kay

An heir to Alan Bennett ... stirring and rather wonderful

—— Antony Quinn , Sunday Times

If you only read one personal music odyssey, make it this one

—— GQ

Witty and wise, with more good lines than the Angel of the North

—— Hunter Davies

A working class boy who now, on air, challenges Stephen Fry's spry wit, Maconie celebrates his younger self modestly and fluently, pausing only for regular rib-ticklers

—— Mojo

Maconie makes a jovial, self-deprecating narrator. Sharp and funny

—— Guardian

Exuberantly anecdotal, witty and poignant

—— GQ
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