Fairytale beginning

Twenty-one years ago, an 11-year-old boy from Kippen in Stirlingshire stood in the wings of Glasgow's Theatre Royal waiting for his first taste of the big time. As tastes go, this was only really a spoonful - Christopher Harrison's character in Scottish Ballet's 1993 production of The Nutcracker didn't even have a name. But it was flavoursome enough to set the boy on the way to what the man has become: principal dancer with the national company, a veteran of productions such as Cinderella and A Streetcar Named Desire and - with the eyes of the world on him - one of the stars of July's Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, when he danced with fellow principal Sophie Martin to a slowed-down version of The Proclaimers's I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles).

"That was my first taste of being on stage, so it was a huge event for me," Harrison says, thinking back to that 1993 production. "But being in the wings and being able to watch the dancers up close was amazing, not just on stage but off stage as well. I always enjoyed training and classes up to that point because I had a lot of energy as a kid. But when I went there and I saw how much the dancers enjoyed it, that intrigued me. I thought 'Yeah, that's something I want to do'."

Now 32, Harrison celebrates a decade with Scottish Ballet next year. Next week, meanwhile, he returns to company founder Peter Darrell's version of The Nutcracker, though in a far loftier position this time - he will dance the role of the Prince alongside Martin's Sugar Plum Fairy. "It's quite surreal," he laughs. "I never would have thought in a million years I would have been involved in Scottish Ballet, let alone be The Prince."

It's one of the most celebrated roles in one of ballet's most celebrated productions. Factor in Tchaikovsky's famous score and it's not hard to see why The Nutcracker is such a festive favourite and such a cornerstone of the Scottish Ballet repertoire.

"It relates to this day because the story's timeless, and it relates really well to families because there's something there for everyone," says Harrison. "Sometimes you do ballets and you think it's directed more at adults than children, but with this one you can have everyone come along, and I think the dancers appreciate that as well - that this is the time of year when we have a wider audience."

This will be Harrison's third Nutcracker, not counting that first 1993 production. He also performed in the version created by Ashley Page (artistic director of Scottish Ballet for a decade from 2002) and, in 2001, as a member of the Dresden State Opera, he danced in a "very grand and very traditional" production choreographed by Hamburg Ballet's American-born director John Neumeier.

"We had Apfelstrudel which we had to eat on stage," he recalls. "It sounds good but if you haven't finished your mouthful and you have to start dancing, it isn't that great. But there were no kids involved, which I think was a bit of a shame. It would feel more Christmassy with kids. But it was a marvellous production."

And how does Darrell's much older version compare?

"The choreography is just as challenging technically as a modern version of Nutcracker," he says. "Sometimes if something's really old, the technique isn't so demanding, but this one was demanding in its time and it's still demanding now. And the sets and the ideas that he has - little things like the party scene and how he uses the props ... it's not an old or tired production at all. It's very fresh."

Also fresh are the costumes, for which Scottish Ballet has teamed up with award-winning designer Lez Brotherston. A regular collaborator with choreographer Matthew Bourne, Brotherston has re-imagined Darrell's original 1973 designs. Plush Victoriana is the order of the day now.

Incredibly, this will be only the second Peter Darrell production in which Harrison has appeared. The first was the Scottish Ballet founder's 1971 work Othello, which the company revisited in 2007 with Harrison in the role of Cassio. So while Darrell's legacy is immense, how is he viewed today?

"He's a big part of the identity of Scottish Ballet," says Harrison. "He created everything, pretty much. Scottish Ballet wouldn't be here otherwise. Even though he's not around [Darrell died in 1987], we have the Darrell Studio and there's always little reminders of the things he's done here, whether it's photos or whatever."

But if Darrell's legacy and reputation have stayed constant, much else about the company he founded has changed immeasurably. Looking back over his near-decade at Scottish Ballet, Harrison can recall the days of rehearsing in the old headquarters on West Princes Street, a space with no natural light, holes in the ceiling and where the only air conditioning came from opening the fire exits. Now they're in purpose-built premises at Glasgow's Tramway.

"We're spoiled with the space," he says, gesturing to the complex of rooms and warm, light rehearsal spaces beyond where we're sitting. "Maybe the other dancers who are new don't realise that, but we don't take it for granted, that's for sure."

Another major change is the amount of international touring the company now does, testament to its increasingly high international profile and the quality of the work it is able to take on the road. Scottish Ballet, says Harrison, is now on the map.

"People are more aware of us, whether that's because of touring or the bigger events we're starting to do, like the Ryder Cup and the Commonwealth Games," he says. "We've always worked with great choreographers, we've always been lucky that way. But now we're touring with big choreographers' work, like Matthew Bourne. We took his piece Highland Fling to Russia. He's never let another company do his work and when you see that choreographers trust the company, that's a big thing. It's the biggest compliment. So I think we're on the up."

Ballet's popularity among boys seems to be on the increase too, if Harrison's experience of visiting dance workshops is anything to go by. It's appropriate, then, that unlike the Page and Neumeier productions, this year's Nutcracker does feature children in small roles. It raises the delicious prospect of Harrison being able to hand on encouragement and inspiration to another young boy waiting in the wings.

"In 1993 the dancers were so enthusiastic with the kids and they really made us feel welcome, so hopefully I can be helpful and enthusiastic too. They really inspired me at the time - so if I can do that for a young guy coming through, that would be phenomenal."

So could history repeat itself? Could the Scottish Ballet principal of 2035 be one of this starry-eyed 2014 crop? "Fingers crossed," he laughs.

Sophie Martin's story

Curled up in a chair and managing to look both exquisitely poised and carelessly relaxed, Normandy-born dancer Sophie Martin is running me through some of the chewier moves in her upcoming role as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, this year's Scottish Ballet Christmas spectacular.

By Martin's reckoning, this is her fifth Nutcracker, having danced in the 2003 version created by former Scottish Ballet artistic director Ashley Page. But it's the first time she has danced the version created by Scottish Ballet's legendary founder Peter Darrell.

"Everything is very different," she says of Darrell's work. "The music is the same, so you would recognise the Spanish Dance, but it's totally different steps."

These steps aren't any easier, though. The famous pas de deux which contains The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, she says, "is quite stressful just because it's very pure. It's slow, but if something goes wrong I think the audience would notice more than with another type of dance. But with time you get to know yourself and just try to relax as much as you can because that's the best way not to mess it up!"

Of course ballerinas trained, like Martin, at the famous Conservatory National Supérieur in Paris tend not to mess it up. Not for nothing has the 30-year-old spent six years as one of Scottish Ballet's two female principals, starring in hits like A Streetcar Named Desire, Highland Fling, Sleeping Beauty and Romeo And Juliet. And let's not forget her tour-de-force performance with fellow principal Christopher Harrison in the opening ceremony of July's Commonwealth Games.

Refreshingly, given that any Nutcracker performance will have hordes of aspiring Bussells and Baryshnikovs in the audience, Martin can't remember the first ballet she saw.

"If you mean ballet with tutus and all that, I think it was when I was already training in Paris," she says. "I'm pretty sure I've seen some modern stuff where I'm from [Cherbourg], but otherwise it was probably Paris Opera. When I went to school at the Conservatoire we would get a box in the Palais Garnier and, if you put your name down, you could sometimes go and watch. I saw Nureyev's Don Quixote."

There was no eureka moment, then. Martin did ballet as an after-school activity to run off some energy, and because her older sister did it. "She was much more receptive to discipline than me," she laughs.

Clearly that has changed, though. Martin joined Scottish Ballet straight from the Paris Conservatoire, and has learned enough about discipline and hard work to be regarded now as arguably its greatest asset.

Talent has played no little part, too. But while the Sugar Plum Fairy is one of the most iconic parts Martin will dance, which one is actually her favourite?

"I think it was Romeo And Juliet," she says. "It was a new production for the company so I had a lot of freedom in the input and with the choreography ... and it's a dream role for a girl."

Peter Darrell's The Nutcracker opens at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh on Saturday December 13 and runs until January 3, 2015) before touring to Theatre Royal, Glasgow (January 7-10), His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen (January 14-17) and Eden Court, Inverness (January 21-24), www.scottishballet.co.uk