It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The temptation to paraphrase one of the most famous opening lines in literature is irresistible when reviewing any adaptation of Charles Dickens’s epic novel of the French Revolution. As it is, Cathy Marston’s touring production for Northern Ballet Theatre may not rank as the best new narrative that dance audiences will have seen this year, but it is a far better thing than might have been expected, given its complicated source material.

Marston is a good bet when it comes to the current crop of young, talented, British-born dance-makers. Trained at the Royal Ballet School, she has headed the Bern Ballet since 2006. Previously she had the distinction of being appointed the first associate artist of the Royal Opera House. It was there that her interest in telling stories through movement culminated in an adaptation of Ibsen’s Ghosts.

This text-free take on Dickens is thus neither Marston’s first full-length dance drama nor her first work for NBT. Significantly, however, it is the first time that the NBT artistic director David Nixon has invited a guest choreographer to create a full-length production for his popular Leeds-based troupe.

Although A Tale of Two Cities is an instantly familiar title, I wonder how many people know well Dickens’s plot or characters. The latter include a dissolute English lawyer (authoritatively played by Kenneth Tindall) and a French aristocrat’s son, Charles Darnay (Tobias Batley), meant to bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. Both are in love with a French doctor’s daughter (the charming Keiko Amemori). This triangular relationship is pegged on themes of revenge – embodied by a pack of angry, hungry peasants led by Victoria Sibson’s wolfish wine-seller – and an ultimate act of sacrificial redemption.

Marston and her co-scenarist Edward Kemp have done a creditable job streamlining a story that slips between London and Paris, past and present. Jon Bausor’s bold, flexible, attractive designs – including a front curtain that is a giant guillotine blade – are a distinct asset, while Dave Maric’s fine original score provides the show with a sometimes suspenseful, unexpectedly delicate pulse.

Still, certain 19th-century devices in the narrative – particularly the writing of letters – remain a stumbling block. I suspect that I am not the only audience member occasionally lost in the key areas of “who’s that again, what’s going on here and why?”.

Instead I concentrated on Marston’s choreography, in which high-flown balletic line maintains a connection to a curvier, more grounded contemporary dance vocabulary. Weaving together expressive gestural motifs with occasional flashes of wit, pointe work and barefoot dance, duets and ensemble scenes, the wealth of movement she gives NBT may break no new ground but instead betokens solid craft and invention.

Box office: 0113 2137700, to Sept 6, then in Nottingham and Sheffield. www.northernballettheatre.co.uk

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