Monica Mason, the Royal Ballet’s new director, has a tough job, no matter how she does it. “A director has to juggle the old or ‘heritage’ repertoire with the new; maintain the 20th-century classics as well as the 19th-century ones; import foreign successes and support indigenous efforts; and of course share out space between Ashton and MacMillan. No matter how the portions are carved out, many people in many places will be seriously displeased. Mason looks likely to be the safe consolidator, the steadying hand after the squalls of the Stretton regime. After seeking to blow new air into the Royal Ballet by appointing Stretton, the ROH Board then did a frightened U-turn by scurrying back to the old guard with Mason.”