Ellie at the Royal Opera House with her mother and support workers

IT’S a classic Christmas ballet that has enchanted children for decades.

Originally performed over 130 years ago, The Nutcracker remains popular in modern times.

But this holiday season, the traditional tale was involved in a new first: a “relaxed” performance at the Royal Opera House.

It is the first time the prestigious venue has put on a relaxed performance where the usual rules governing shows – for example, no talking – are dropped with a view to making them more accessible to people with disabilities.

Robert Spigel, who took his disabled daughter to see the show, said: “We’ve taken Ellie to ordinary performances at Sadler’s Wells and The Lion King and the staff have been wonderful. It’s occasion­ally members of the audience who have been appalling. They say ‘I pay so much for these tickets. You shouldn’t bring your daughter here’.

“Once I had a shouting match where a woman said ‘your daughter should be sitting at the back’. But then somebody else from the audience came up to us afterwards and said, ‘it was lovely seeing your daughter enjoy the performance’.

“So there’s good and bad but we now try to avoid non-relaxed performances. It’s just too stressful for us and the support workers.”

Mr Spigel, a Camden Disability Action reporter, said his daughter has a rare genetic disorder that means she has “profound and multiple learning disabilities”, experiences epileptic seizures and is visually and hearing impaired.

But he said Ellie, 33, did not simply enjoy the storyline. She also loved going to performances – including Arsenal football matches – for “the music, the noise, the movement, the colour, being around lots of people” and the journey of going there.

Mr Spigel said Ellie often comments on the things she sees during shows, which has sometimes led to audience members complaining.

At the relaxed showing of The Nutcracker, the auditorium lights were kept on so that people could get up and move around or relax in a chill-out zone during the show.

Staff received special training and before the show began the dancers came out on stage without wearing their masks.

The actor playing the Toy Maker explained to the audience that a fight on stage was not real.

The performance itself was the same as anybody else would see it.

But Mr Spigel said relaxed performances should be standard practice, and added: “My impression is there aren’t that many.

“There may well be relaxed performances in straight drama. But Ellie is not going to be interested in two people having dialogue on a stage.

“When we’ve looked at relaxed performances in the cinema sometimes they can be at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Now why is that? Because otherwise, they’d have an empty theatre.”

There was no thought of how difficult it is trying to get somebody with special needs up to get to a venue at that time, he said.

“So it’s just a cynical attempt to put more bums on seats, frankly, rather than provide a worthwhile outing.”