Northern Ballet: Gentleman Jack – Lowry, Salford

Music: Peter Salem

Choreographer: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Conductor: Daniel Parkinson

Most people had never heard of Anne Lister until the BBC/HBO brought us her story in Sally Wainwright’s 2019 historical drama. Gentleman Jack is based on Lister’s extraordinary diaries, which, when discovered and de-coded, turned out to be an unapologetic record of her business dealings and her romantic attachments. For a woman in the early 19^th century, both parts of her life – as industrialist and lesbian – went against traditional norms. It’s a story that exposes the attitudes of the time she lived in, and reminds us of how things have changed. It’s a love story. It’s a family drama. All the stuff that makes compelling drama.

So when Northern Ballet’s Artistic Director Federico Bonelli was looking for a new story to adapt, Anne Lister’s life emerged as one that could be told through the traditions of ballet while offering a contemporary perspective. With the story in place, he then went on to choose a brilliant team to make it happen – including Composer Peter Salem, Choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Designers Christopher Ash (set and lighting) and Louise Flanagan (costume).

Gentleman Jack is a triumph, adeptly blending the traditional and the contemporary across the score, choreography and design. While Lopez Ochoa’s choreography sticks to a traditional structure of ensemble pieces, duets and solos, all of it is beautifully paired back, with effortless transitions. It is full of humour, heartbreak and clever tropes – the ensemble forming the words of Lister’s diary, the literal pushing and pulling of desire and contrition. Heather Lehan as Anne Lister is strident and confrontational with the men who surround her at work, swaggering and self-confident with her Parisian admirers, soft and sensuous with the women she loves – the shy and conflicted Mariana Lawton (Saeka Shirai) and the unexpectedly smitten Ann Walker (Rachael Gillespie). Lehan and Gillespie’s duet as they meet for the first time in secret, is intense and mesmerising.

The ensemble work brilliantly with the dynamic set. Traditional looking dressers are gracefully turned around to reveal digital screens displaying beautiful scene-setting images, a sturdy table provides an additional level for the dancers to move on, and a treadmill is brilliantly used as Anne heads off to Paris for a bit of an adventure. Everything is sparingly used, everything keeps moving, nothing – and nobody – is out of place.

Peter Salem’s score mixes soaring melodies with harsh percussion creating something that veers from traditional orchestral to minimalism. At times it’s heavy on the brass, the piano soars through with glorious melodies, and the percussion creates an industrial backdrop. It’s all performed live by a specially amassed ensemble which changes from venue to venue throughout the tour. For the Lowry a small and impressive group of musicians is conducted by Daniel Parkinson.

The final scene is a symbolic wedding as Lister and Walker commit to one another – not a public declaration but a secret bonding. We shouldn’t forget just how unrecognised a romantic relationship between two women was in Lister’s time, and long after, but Gentleman Jack reminds us that love pays no heed to society’s judgement and laws, and this production does that so beautifully and with heaps of glorious charm.

Runs until 6 June 2026