Matinée performances, invariably cast without company stars, reveal most about the health and quality of a ballet troupe, and so it proved for Love and Loss, BRB’s last mixed bill of the season – there is much burgeoning talent in the lower ranks.

Company director David Bintley’s Galanteries is a cool, classy work set to Mozart and originally created on the cream of the Royal Ballet’s principals in 1986. Here there was barely a dancer of more than soloist rank but the performance was luminous, not least Delia Mathews (pictured), a year out of the Royal Ballet School yet already a performer of poise and elegance. Her legato dancing provided the greatest joy; other featured roles were not taken with quite such effortless insouciance. Jan Blake’s designs and costumes, variations in grey, fit the work well.

Poor design mars Bintley’s 1995 The Dance House, the choreographer’s reaction to the death of fellow dancer Nicholas Millington. The “house” backdrop and blood-red barre stretching the width of the stage do not offend but lurid and unflattering costuming detracts from the impact of a work that speaks eloquently of love and loss. In the central figure, Bintley evokes not only death but Millington himself – it is a spiky, sparky role and Alexander Campbell already gives an accomplished interpretation: he is a striking young dancer, muscular of frame, powerful of jump and expressive of gesture. Of note also is Momoko Hirata, whose graceful dancing displays rare coherence.

The Royal Ballet Sinfonia played Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto with verve (all praise to soloist Jonathan Higgins) as they did with the Mozart and also the Mendelssohn of Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, which closed the bill. Campbell was a Puck of technical brilliance and impudent charm, easily outshining both the subfusc Oberon and lightweight Titania. Alas, the corps de ballet were clueless about Ashtonian style, stiff of torso and arms and musically four-square – alarm bells are ringing. It remained to the quartet of mortal lovers to inject zest, Carol-Ann Millar in particular shining as a ditsy Helena. Peter Farmer’s 1966 designs continue to delight, even if Ashton’s sly subversion of the Victorian aesthetic was not always best served by some of the dancing. ★★★☆☆