this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk with me, mishal husain. my guest is steven mcrae, who has been a principal dancer with the royal ballet here in london for the last 15 years. he has defied serious injury to come back to the stage again and again. so what is his message today for his profession and for the wider world of ballet about how to look after a younger generation of dancers? steven mcrae, welcome to hardtalk. we are here at the royal ballet

and opera in london, which has been your professional home for many years now, and you're about to go back on stage as the mad hatter in alice's adventures in wonderland. tell me first how this adventure began for you, the world of ballet, because you grew up far away from here. yes, so i grew up in the outskirts of sydney, australia, probably the furthest you could possibly get from the royal opera house here in london. i grew up in a motorsport family. my father was a drag racer. my father was an incredibly clever man who would create any parts with his own bare hands that he couldn't afford to purchase or to import. but i obviously grew up watching him pursue a passion. my sister did a lot of gymnastics, a bit of dancing, and as a seven—year—old, i asked my father if i could have a go. i wanted to go to a dance lesson, and my mother and father didn't even question any of it — bearing in mind we didn't go to the theatre,

we didn't go to galleries, or... i was not exposed to the arts. but they found a local school around the corner, and we now can fully appreciate that that little local school had some of the best teachers you could ever come across. and you had this very rapid rise through your teens. you performed at the opening ceremony of the sydney olympics, and then you started to win international ballet competitions. the first teachers i had unleashed this tiger within me. so, then it was when i was about 13 or 14, another ballet teacher that i was taken to — which again shows you just how incredible my first teachers were, that they felt they'd taken me so far, and it was time to hand me on — they introduced me to my teacher in sydney, hilary kaplan, and it was her who said to my parents, "your son could do this. "he could actually go all the way and join the royal ballet company, and this could be his life." so that was so foreign to us.

as soon as she said royal ballet, i thought it was in melbourne or something. but when you came here and you went through the ballet school, and then you got a job at 18 with the royal ballet, that kind of pressure on a young person, what was it like? when ijoined the school — this is well over 20 years ago now — the safeguarding rules and things were a very different world then. so, the school had no room in the accommodation, so i was put in a hostel. i didn't know a soul. i didn't have any guardian here in the uk. there was there was no family to go to on a sunday to have a roast. but i was on this mission. i was on an absolute mission to fulfil this passion of mine. i had no idea what world i was entering, ijust loved it. so, at the age of 18, joining the company,

i'd been in london forjust over a year, and if i'm really truthfully honest, i was riddled with homesickness. it was quite crippling at times. i would break out into rashes and of course, with my colouring, it was just assumed, "oh, you've got sensitive skin" and you know, "here are some creams." thankfully, now with much more open talk going on about the mental health and well—being of all of us, notjust high—performing artists and athletes. and i can look back at it now and say, well, obviously i was riddled with anxiety, and i guess that that torn feeling deep within of i've given up and sacrificed my family on the other side of the world in putting myself and my passion first, ahead of anybody else. the only way i knew how to deal with that was to dig deeper and throw my head even deeper into the profession, which is absolutely what i did. did your first major role come about because someone was injured and you had

to step in? yeah, that's correct, it was in my first season. there was a fantastic ballet called symphonic variations by sir frederick ashton, and the casting went up and i was an understudy. it's just three principal men and three principal women. as an 18—year—old, that's a huge honour to see your name put up as an understudy. as the rehearsal process went on, one of the dancers got injured and ifound myself on the opening night on the royal opera house stage next to, you know, these dancers, these artists that i had so admired. my first big, full—length principal role was romeo in sir kenneth macmillan's romeo and juliet. and again, that was not planned, it was a last—minute injury. i wasn't even the understudy. and five days later, i did the opening night of that role. you've seen the other side of that now, haven't you? because in your years dancing here, you have had some pretty serious injuries, so you now know what it feels like to be the one... i've definitely gone to the other side! ..who can't carry on.

yeah. and in some cases, your injuries have happened really on stage in and really, you know, in the most dramatic way possible. yeah, so in 2019, i was on stage performing sir kenneth macmillan's manon, a ballet that actually at the age of 14, when i had started to focus on ballet, transformed my entire view of what dance actually was. towards the end of act two, towards the end of act two, i took off for a jump i took off for a jump and my achilles snapped right and my achilles snapped right in front of 2,500 people. in front of 2,500 people. it's obviously the worst it's obviously the worst nightmare for an artist or nightmare for an artist or an athlete to have any injury. an athlete to have any injury. did you know immediately what had happened? did you know immediately what had happened? yeah. yeah. because you felt it or you...? because you felt it or you...? jump, and i heard, "da—dum!" yeah. yeah. so, some people experience so, some people experience the sensation or the sound the sensation or the sound of a gunshot going off. of a gunshot going off. for me, it sounded like a plank for me, it sounded like a plank of wood, like a doorstop, of wood, like a doorstop, a wedge that we use in sets a wedge that we use in sets to stop them sliding around. to stop them sliding around.

so, for me, i took off for the so, for me, i took off for the jump, and i heard, "da—dum!" i thought i'd tripped over something. so, of course, 2500 people orchestra going, you're alone on stage, you of course, carry on — the show must always go on. but i literally had no leg to stand on. so, immediately, the shock, the adrenaline is removed from you. without being too graphic, it felt like somebody was just slicing through my leg. and that's all magnified with the humiliation of it

is handled or managed differently, if the expectations are different? yeah, absolutely. if you look at any top performing world, whether that is the performing arts, the world of sport, you see this pattern, this parallel between all the professions that this sense of burnout almost becomes the norm. it's accepted that, well, anyone who wants to succeed and achieve, they're going to hit this wall of burnout. and then they decide, yes, i want to carry on or i step away. at the time, i was unaware that i was actually in an extreme state of burnout. i'd become a father, i had two young children at the time. there was so much going on. i was performing every role you could ever dream of, working with the greatest

ballerinas and choreographers, the full support of my director, kevin o'hare. and so, of course, for myself and for everybody around me, there was no chance that anybody was witnessing any sniff of burnout from me cos it looked as if i was flying high. but are you saying that burnout and its effect is not only psychological, that perhaps there was something that made you weaker and made that injury more likely? yeah, genuinely, if you look at our profession, the workload is too high. and the royal ballet has really tried to embrace the need for change in this area. so, we have an incredible sports department, we have a medical team now where we have sports scientists tracking workload — how manyjumps we're performing in that particular ballet and how does that overlap with the multiple productions. so, the company are very much pushing ahead and trying to find new ways. now. but at the time... of course. at the time, that was not the case. it was very much that

environment that of course, you say yes to everything. people still want to say that this career is short, so in your head, if you say no, then perhaps you won't get that opportunity again. of course, you can't turn back time and say i would have done it differently, but that was the circumstance at the time. but i wonder if there is something that is so unique, perhaps even so extreme, about ballet, that makes it difficult to pursue excellence in the same way, if you put a kinder, gentler framework around it. i mean, i'm struck by what carlos acosta said about how he saw ballet as a living sacrifice, that you wake up every day and you hammer your body, putting your own health at risk to give other people pleasure. there's something about that that can't be right. yeah, and i think the difficulty is that for a profession like this, many dancers start

at a young age, at an age where they have no concept of what the professions actually like, what the human body goes through, what it's like to be an older adult. you're young, you just want to do it, you have the passion, so you're unaware of, i guess, the consequences. but there are adults around you who should, who do know? yeah, exactly, exactly. and again, things have now developed and moved on. we have a long way to go of course. we still need to, i think, embrace far more of the world of sport within our industry, which of course opens a whole other discussion of, well, are we artists or athletes? and you think...? well, i believe that we're artists who have to behave like athletes. what we require of our own bodies, that's before you talk about what any school or company then asks you to do. what we're personally asking our bodies to do, it's not sustainable.

to be in peak condition six days a week, every week of the year — and that is the reality still in many of these companies that the need to obviously have people come to our theatre and enjoy these extraordinary art forms means that the demand is there for us to be performing regularly. and to look pretty perfect. i mean, we should talk about the appearance side of all of this, because that's something most sportsmen and women don't have to think about to any degree, in the way you do. is ballet unhealthy in its emphasis on body shape? if you lined all of us principal dancers currently at the royal ballet in a line, it would be impossible for anybody to say, "that is the ideal body type". and so i believe that the narratives now, it's got to completely shift. it's not about what is the body type or you need to look a certain way. it's about the actual health and physicality of the individual unique body.

if you look that way and you've achieved that in the healthiest of ways possible to have a long, healthy career, but also go beyond your career and actually be a healthy human individual, then that's what the focus needs to be. but i wonder, perhaps that's more true for men and boys than for women and girls. would you acknowledge that, that the pressures on female dancers are more extreme? historically, i agree. i absolutely agree. and i also believe that that narrative is shifting — the concept of or the pressure being put onto the ballerina to look a certain way. i hear what you're saying, and yet i wonder to what extent things have really changed. you still hear girls, or now women who've been through ballet schools talking about, you know, comments made about their weight or being appreciated more when they've lost weight or even sleeping with cling film around them to try and sweat off weight. i mean, you're nodding,

you've heard... you know, this kind of thing goes on. it does still go on, doesn't it? yeah, i definitely know stories of this. i've had, you know, colleagues i've had, you know, colleagues as students who believed as students who believed that that was something they needed to do. that that was something they needed to do. i never once witnessed i never once witnessed any teacher saying to any teacher saying to a student that that's a student that that's what they needed to do. what they needed to do. i think now, because the i think now, because the industry has evolved so much industry has evolved so much and it is starting to really and it is starting to really embrace the world of sport, embrace the world of sport, we now realise that we now realise that of course, that's ridiculous. of course, that's ridiculous. i honestly believe that it's i honestly believe that it's how the artists reach over to make the audience how the artists reach over beyond the orchestra pit, beyond the orchestra pit, grab the audience's grab the audience's heart and rip it out. heart and rip it out. and for me, it's not and for me, it's not about how the dancer looks. about how the dancer looks. for me, the artist needs for me, the artist needs to be healthy, enriched. to be healthy, enriched. if the artist is not truthfully if the artist is not truthfully feeling that they are flying, feeling that they are flying,

how on earth are they going how on earth are they going to make the audience feel that way? and did the younger you feel enriched and feel healthy? cos just on body shape, your body has changed, hasn't it? you are a lot more, muscly, you know, your body is different now to how you were ten years ago. definitely. so, when you look at your body shape when you were younger, what do you think? yeah, so i look back at the younger me and just think, how on earth did i do what i was doing? i have photos of me holding my newborn daughter, and i look like a 12—year—old boy... so skinny? ..holding my daughter.

for myself what it is to actually rebuild the body from scratch again. in some ways, what you're saying is quite an indictment of the system that you've spent a lot of your career in, and you're now in a senior position when you have the confidence to say what you are. so, if you are running a ballet company because, you must be thinking about what you do next... you are now 38, which in your world is at the more senior end, shall i say... nicely put. ..of being a principal dancer. so, what would the stephen mcrae ballet company look like? how would it be different from the from the world you have known growing up? front and centre every decision is about the dancer. so, when you're looking at the workload, the casting, the number of casts, how is that having an impact on the dancer and work backwards from there.

of course i would love our theatres to have a performance on every single night, but then again, work backwards. how do you achieve that in the healthiest way possible? it's just, i think learning again from the world of sport how to work efficiently... there used to be a culture in the world of dance that the only way to achieve something is repetition — do it again, do it again, and let's do it six days in a row. and we know scientifically that that's not the case. the royal ballet is at the forefront trying to make that happen. but we need as an industry to really, really change it. and at the same time of bringing new audiences in, because i'm struck by the fact that the production that you're returning to on the stage here, the role that you're returning to, is the mad hatter. it's a role that combines tap and ballet, doesn't it? which goes back to your roots in some ways, because you were known for tap before you were known

to this extent in ballet. people always say, "oh, you're a ballet dancer." and yes, i'm a principal dancer of the royal ballet, but i always have just seen myself as a dancer. i'm an artist. and when alice's adventures in wonderland was created, the choreographer christopher wheeldon knew that i had tapped. and he's very clever at amalgamating styles and bringing different influences into his choreography. so, yeah, the tap shoes were requested and... you must have been surprised because they are very different disciplines, aren't they? they are, but then if you look at gene kelly, fred astaire, they were amalgamating the styles then, and that's i think, the beauty of it. we do now have more boys going into ballet than was the case when you started out, but there's still a high drop—off rate. so what would you say to try and keep boys and young men in the discipline? i mean, it comes from

the teachers, doesn't it? it comes from the teachers empowering the young students to really understand and appreciate that the world of dance and the arts in general can literally be a gateway to the world. we need to be able to have society finally relax and allow boys, girls, whoever to actually enjoy what it is they're passionate about. if you've got a young boy that's passionate about it at a young age and then it starts to drop off, that passion just doesn't disappear overnight — that's from society. that's from the pressures around them of conforming or wanting to obviously fit in with their peers. and i think if there is a young boy watching this or a parent watching this, my father was so influential with how i approached that. it was asked to my father, "what's this we hear your son is dancing?"

and he just said to them, "yeah, he's amazing. you should come and watch him." and i had a situation where some bigger guys came up and asked me the same thing. "what's this? we hear you dance." and it was my father in my head. and i looked them in the eye and said, "apparently i'm pretty good, you should come and watch." and they left me alone. i mean, of course, and it happens still today. i'm a grown man. society still throws comments your way. but i learned very quickly at a young age, why give those people your energy and the satisfaction of giving them the reaction that they wanted? i was so fortunate at a young age to find a passion. i was absolutely sure as hell not going to let somebody with that opinion deter me from pursuing that passion. is it still a passion, though, that to pursue you have to be prepared to live with pain? and i mean physical pain.

the reality is our body is our instrument. it's our tool. it's not as easy as taking it to the car garage and having a service and they replace a part. i do have a new achilles and a new knee, but the reality is, when you use your tool every single day, it is going to break down, it's going to malfunction. i don't think any amount of healthcare can actually prevent you from doing damage to your body. that is the art form. but these big injuries no longer will determine whether your career ends or carries on, and that's something i'm so proud of. it was a huge moment to step back out onto the royal opera house stage, but i felt it was a bigger moment, way beyond my own selfish drive to get back on stage. it was a huge moment for the industry and for all those young dancers, my colleagues in the company,

to say to them, this is an art form where you do wear your heart on your sleeve. you can't go on stage and hold back. that's not what the audience want to experience. but does that mean that you are often in pain when you dance? yeah, absolutely. and if you ask every top athlete, they'll be saying the same. i'm a huge admirer of andy murray, and of course, in those final years, he obviously couldn't even hide the pain that he was in. but his passion for what he was doing, his own drive of what he was doing, i found totally inspiring. and it would be the same in the world of dance. of course i wake up in the morning, it takes me a good ten, 15 minutes to even be able to walk properly. i walk down the stairs backwards because it's easier on the achilles and the knee, and my children think it's normal that their father walks down the stairs backwards. they don't even question it. it'sjust the norm. always, orjust in the morning? every morning. every morning? yeah, that's the reality. but i'm also very proud that

i can sit here and say that i no longer perform heavily medicated on painkillers and anti—inflammation drugs. i've been able to move away from that particular culture. makes me think that the audiences to whom you give a sort of magical experience, they'll wonder at what you do, but they won't really know what you go through. of course, there's an element of the mystique. the magic, don't show everything that goes on behind the scenes, because that's the point. people want to come to the theatre and escape it. but i do believe it's important to share much of our profession, not only for the next generations, but for society. what will you do next, do you think, when this time as a principal dancer here comes to an end? oh, it's no secret i love this profession. i'm so passionate about this profession. it has genuinely transformed my life. and i will do everything i can

to support the profession, to hold up the next generations and make sure that they have the most beautiful careers and lives that they could possibly have. i will do everything i possibly can to ensure that we keep having these conversations to celebrate the dance world and also the arts. steven mcrae, thank you for being on hardtalk. my pleasure. thank you. hello there! we saw some pretty decent temperatures for the time of year on thursday, with highs of 19 degrees in northolt in greater london. that was thanks to sunshine,

warm southerly winds and high pressure. for friday, though a few changes to the weather. it will be cloudier for many. still a bit of sunshine around, but we've got this area of low pressure which will tend to throw up a weather front into southern and western areas to bring outbreaks of rain. strong winds out towards the southwest, but lighter further north and east. and it's here where we'll start cloudy with some early mist and fog, especially the midlands, northern and eastern england that will tend to lift into low cloud. and we'll see this rain in the south and the west slowly pushing northwards across england and wales, tending to weaken as it does so. but skies brighten up behind it with a few showers and it's very windy for the far southwest. most of scotland, northern ireland, northern eastern will stay cloudy. best of any sunshine southwest scotland and northwest england. temperatures pretty decent again for the time of year. mid to high teens. friday night we see that weather front spread northwards across scotland, bringing outbreaks of rain to patchy clouds. skies clear for many, this area of low pressure starts to fizzle out across the southwest so the winds will ease down here. still fairly mild, temperatures to start saturday, ranging between 7 and 11 degrees. saturday that area of low

pressure fizzles out, but we look to the north west, a renewed area of low pressure. its weather front pushing into scotland and northern ireland bringing strong winds and outbreaks of rain here. but much of southern and eastern scotland, england and wales will have a fine day with some sunshine. a few showers wales, southwest england some early showers, i think east anglia in the southeast, but these will clear away so the majority will be dry into the afternoon, but a slightly fresher thanks to westerly winds on saturday. the mid—teens i think for most. into sunday ridge of high pressure builds into england and wales, so a lot of dry weather here could be quite cool to start on sunday. maybe some early mist and fog as the winds will be light here, but again quite breezy. scotland, northern ireland with further outbreaks of rain, though not as wet as saturday i think, with much of eastern scotland staying dry. so a fine day to come across england and wales, but a bit cooler again. ii to 15 degrees. as we move into next week once we pass monday, it looks like high pressure starts to build in right across the country. that'll settle the weather down once again, away from the far north of scotland,

which will stay quite breezy with some showers, but the vast majority of the country through the week should be dry. there may be quite a lot of cloud around, and it could be quite cool at night with some mist and fog developing. take care.

political editor chris mason sits down with prime minister sir keir starmer — as he comes under pressure over slavery reparations at a commonwealth summit in samoa. a warning from the un — cut carbon emissions or be on track to miss global warming limits by a �*catastrophic�* margin. hello, i'm catriona perry. you're very welcome. we start in the middle east where efforts to re—start negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage release deal in gaza continued on thursday. us secretary of state antony blinken is in doha for meetings with qatari leaders. he said that israeli and american negotiators will travel to doha in the coming days for fresh ceasefire talks. a hamas official, speaking after talks with egyptian mediators in cairo on thursday, told the french news agency afp that the group is ready to stop fighting if israel

commits to a ceasefire deal.