The Ashton centenary celebrations continue at Covent Garden, and rightly and informatively so. A new triple bill last week brought the quintessential Symphonic Variations in a well-reasoned performance (and its cast of six included a Romanian, a Dane, an Italian, a Spaniard). Gone the frozen, "Help! I'm dancing in a masterpiece" manner of a few years ago: with Alina Cojocaru and Federico Bonelli in the principal roles, the reading was attentive to nuance, confident, nowhere more so than with a debutant lately graduated from the Royal Ballet School and taking to this glorious work with confidence and handsome technique. What the future holds for Steven McRae I dare not guess, but if he is not spoiled by too much - or too little - attention, he must surely have a splendid career. His dancing was exceptional in grace and security.

The evening opened (curious placing) with Les Biches, that enduring soap-bubble by Bronislava Nijinska, Ashton's mentor in his early years. Cap Ferrat in July; jeunes filles en fleur, sylphides of the jazz age; meaningful glances (or not, if you are innocent minded); muscle boys from the beach and a predatory hostess. Poulenc and Marie Laurencin knowing the world they were mirroring. The women of the Royal corps de ballet delicious in pink, and Leanne Benjamin androgynous and apt as the figure who attracts one of the bathers. Matters would have seemed less workaday had the orchestral tempi been brighter in the opening numbers: Poulenc in boots is not the done thing.

And finally, A Month in the Country, decently done but oddly automatic. Sylvie Guillem has calculated to a nicety what Natalya Petrovna feels, but the calculation shows, and Massimo Murru is a sensitive Belyayev.

The dance looked chilly, however, and not quite in the right part of the country. To Philip Gammon, pianist in two works, all praise for his elegant musicianship.

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