This exquisite show features just about everything you could want from a night at the theatre.

A gripping story, thrilling sword fights, galloping horses, more than 100 stunning costumes and mesmerising dance that's as action-packed as it is tender and moving - all brought to life by a sickeningly beautiful cast of world-class dancers belonging to the Northern Ballet Theatre.

The Three Musketeers is a rip-roaring adventure that dads and sons will enjoy as much as mums and daughters.

Exciting fight scenes, intrigue and good-humoured male camaraderie blend with passion, romance and dashing heroism as musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis vow to protect France, together with the spirited D'Artagnan who falls in love with Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting, Constance.

Fight director Renny Krupinski has done a fabulous job of capturing the grandeur and excitement of the story; while some sword-fight scenes fused with the choreography, others stood apart, creating more realism and tension. Heaven knows how the musketeers and Cardinal's guards didn't manage to slice each others' ears off with their swords.

Their skill as both dancers and swordsmen is much more exciting in live theatre than it could ever be on film.

And it's not just the guys who scrap - there's a glorious cat fight between Constance and the villainous Lady de Winter, complete with hair-pulling and slapping.

Set to Malcolm Arnold's delightful music, David Nixon's stunning choreography was in turns funny, exciting and romantic, racing the show along at a cracking pace.

Twelve scene changes took us from Queen Anne's chamber to a prison cell in Calais, and along the way was a galleon, a horse ride (an amusing special effect) and a spectacular masquerade ball.

Set designer Charles Cusick Smith's striking wood panelled set beautifully evoked the feel of 17th century France, from the sumptuous Royal court to the streets of Paris.

Jonathan Byrne Ollivier, David Paul Kierce and Hironao Takahashi were perfect musketeers - heroic, dashing, funny and sexy - and Patrick Howell and Keiko Amemori were spellbinding as lovers D'Artagnan and Constance. Their passionate pas de deux was a joy.

Great performances too from Hannah Bateman as Madame Bonancieux, Steven Wheeler as Count de Rochefort and Victoria Sibson as Lady de Winter.

The costumes were almost characters in themselves. There was the stunning period dress worn by the aristocrats, musketeers and guards and the strikingly imaginative Diamond Dance celebrating the King and Queen's wedding anniversary.

The humour and good-natured camaraderie of this show is one in the eye for anyone who thinks ballet is po-faced. The lovely playful scene involving the Paris washerwomen was a gem, and at the heart of the story was the musketeers' friendship.

You just want to shout All for one and one for all' as they lock swords.

The audience cheered and whistled as the dancers and leading members of the creative team took their bows at the end of the spectacular performance.

Hugely entertaining, the show runs at the Alhambra until Saturday.

e-mail: emma.clayton@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

Show was tinged with sadness

Stars including film director Ken Russell and Emmerdale actress Lorraine Chase joined a packed house at the Alhambra on Saturday night for the world premiere of Northern Ballet Theatre's The Three Musketeers.

The night was tinged with sadness when Northern Ballet Theatre's artistic director David Nixon announced that composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, who created the score for the ballet, had died that afternoon.

Dedicating the performance to Sir Malcolm, 84, Mr Nixon said the score, compiled from a wide range of his music, was an "adventurous and passionate oral landscape".