There are few more magical ways to spend the days before Christmas than in the frost-covered, Christmas tree-decked company of Clara, her nutcracker doll and the Sugar Plum Fairy. But this year, Moscow City Ballet returns to Watford Colosseum with not just one spectacular ballet to get you feeling all festive, but two – they will also be performing the gorgeous classic Swan Lake for your delight.

The celebrated ballet company, which has been performing and touring the world for 26 years after being set up by renowned Russian choreographer Victor Smirnov-Golovanov in 1988, relishes a challenge and is in fact currently touring the world with no less than four ballets – the two it is bringing to Watford, Giselle and Romeo and Juliet.

“It’s quite a feat,“ laughs company manager Martin Taylor, who has been touring the world with Moscow City Ballet for the past six years, organising things like the venues, travel arrangements and visas of the dancers, crew and all the musicians in the Moscow City Ballet Orchestra.

“In the first show of each tour, I breathe a huge sigh of relief when I hear the first chords of the music, the curtain goes up and the conductor starts waving his baton. I think ‘That’s it, that’s my job done’. It’s not, of course, but for a couple of hours it feels like it!“ l Moscow City Ballet performs Swan Lake on Sunday, December 21 at 3pm and 7.30pm, and The Nutcracker on Monday, December 22 and Tuesday, December 23 at 7.30pm, and Wednesday, December 24 at 3pm, at Watford Colosseum, Rickmansworth Road, Watford. Details: 0845 075 3993, watfordcolosseum.co.uk