As predicted, Sir Paul's ballet "Ocean's Kingdom" has been dismissed as minor by all and sundry. "Ballet for beginners" sniffed The Guardian. The Post dismissed the music as "melodic but slight and unmemorable" and the dancing not very good. The New York Times said the music was Ok but the ballet in no way important. Backstage.com nailed it dead, McCartney's score is titillated but overorchestrated and the ballet itself? "There is not a fresh, original, or unfamiliar movement in the whole ballet, and for a narrative piece the choreography is remarkably devoid of individualized gestures or body actions expressing character traits or plot points. The dancers do endless streams of ballet walks around the stage and execute boring phrases of basic neoclassical vocabulary and repetitious lifts"
Anyway, here is the consensus:
1. The music is melodic but not much more.
2. The ballet is weak as a whole.
3. The dancing is amateiurish.
I don't see this being a let's get the Beatle for stomping on our ground. Macca is too well loved to be backlashed like that. Really, the entire thing sounds lame beyind belief. The plot, a Prince of Earth and a Princess of the Ocean fall in love, the Princess's ghandmaiden betrays her to the Prince's evil brother who also wants her… Anyway, the handmaiden changes her mind (a long way to go for very little if you ask me) and they all live happily ever after. Yup, my bet is Backstage got it right.