Spartacus, The Mayflower, Southampton

NO-ONE does ballet quite like the Russians - and last night's performance at The Mayflower was the most impressive display you're likely to see this side of the Urals.

Ballet Grigorovich, founded by former Bolshoi artistic director Yuri Grigorovich, are performing both Spartacus and Romeo and Juliet in their week-long Southampton run. Last night's opening performance of Aram Khachaturian's rarely performed Spartacus revealed both the extent of this company's talents and the excellence of this overlooked ballet.

The heroic tale of a Roman slave who sparks a revolt among gladiators before being destroyed by the soldiers' humiliated commander will be familiar to most people from Stanley Kubrick's epic film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas. In its ballet version, the story takes on a new lease of life, Grigorovich's traditional but full-blooded staging perfectly complementing Khachaturian's electrifying score.

The company makes full use of a large stage, the might of the Ancient Roman empire captured in finely choreographed scenes involving massed troops in full Roman uniform - including, happily for fans of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, those fetching little leather skirts.

The ballet offers a mixture of the romantic, melodramatic and outright erotic. Act II contains the best scenes, including a rather steamy one in which the courtesan Aegina, angered by Spartacus's disgracing of Crassus, leads Spartacus's followers into danger with some extremely dirty dancing.

One of the most powerful moments, however, is also one of the simplest, as Spartacus and his beloved Phrygia express their joy on being reunited.

Khachaturian's score is at its most beautiful here, pressing all the right emotional buttons as it swells to a romantic climax. (TV fans with long memories will have recognised this passage as the theme to Seventies shipping saga The Onedin Line.)

Spartacus continues tonight and tomorrow, with Romeo and Juliet being performed on Friday and Saturday.