Étoile

A week or so ago we came across a series called 'Étoile' on the Prime menu and gave it a go, all eight episodes of it. A sort of stretched ballet version of the film about the Mikado called Topsy-Turvy which we have watched several times, with this version offering a picture of world class ballet from both sides of the curtain, as it were. The lives of the dancers themselves, the movers and shakers of the ballet world and some of the people in between.

Plus a big role for Simon Callow as an arms dealer who is very keen on ballet.

A right bunch all they were too, at least on this showing. And there were also a lot of bits that were very funny; it really was a comedy drama, not my usual genre at all.

Another thing that is not really my genre either is ballet, particularly the old fashioned sort in tights, tutus and points. What I thought were called blocks, but see reference 4. So when the show was the audience side of the curtain, I could see the skill and effort which went into it, but I could not see the point; it did not do anything for me. On the other hand, I did see the point of some of the modern stuff.

It did us well for its eight episodes, but it was starting to run out of puff by the end. Once they have done the ballet thing, they have to fall back on well tried soap plot lines. One notices the same thing in other drama series which are built around exotic places or occupations: once you adjust to the new milieu, get settled in, it is all much the same as any other soap.

From where I associate to a long-ago colleague who had a theory that when you got a big pay rise, it was all splendid for a few weeks, but then you settled into the new routine - which was, to all intents and purposes, very like the old one. Just in a slightly different key, as it were.

PS: there was a striking scene towards the end of the series where the unpredictable and hard-to-manage star dancer explains, in the course of an interview, how dance is somehow alive inside her and that she is driven to express herself through dance - with nothing much else really mattering. Which struck me as a likely tale; that truly creative artists really do feel like that about their art, and have probably felt like that from quite an early age. Fame and money are secondary issues. 

Where I include the curious business of acting among the artists. All to be compared and contrasted with 'The Dresser' of reference 5.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89toile_(TV_series). From which I learn that the series was from Prime, not just on Prime.

Reference 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27613329.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy-Turvy.

Reference 4: https://balletwithisabella.com/posts/what-you-need-to-know-about-pointe-shoes/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-dresser.html.