Editing Robert Helpmann (section)

===Vic-Wells Ballet===
The English actress [[Margaret Rawlings]], who was touring Australia, was impressed by Helpmann. She encouraged him to pursue a career in Britain, and provided him with an introduction to Ninette de Valois, director of the [[Vic-Wells Ballet]] (later named the Sadler's Wells Ballet). Helpmann left Australia in 1932, and did not return until 1955.<ref>Sorley Walker (1998a), p. 9</ref> De Valois accepted him into her company. He impressed her – she later wrote "Everything about him proclaims the artist born"<ref>De Valois, p. 11</ref> – although she noted not only his strengths but also his weaknesses: "talented, enthusiastic, extremely intelligent, great facility, witty, cute as a monkey, quick as a squirrel, a sense of theatre and his own possible achievements therein" but "academically technically weak, lacking in concentration, too fond of a good time and too busy having it".<ref>Salter, pp. 52–53</ref> In the mid-1930s, probably at Rawlings's suggestion, he added a second "n" to his surname, to give it a more foreign and exotic air.{{refn|Alternative explanations for the change of spelling are that Pavlova suggested it, and that a [[numerologist]] told him that fourteen letters would be luckier for him than thirteen. Helpmann's brother and sister followed him in adding the extra letter.<ref>Salter, p. 54; and Sorley Walker (1998a), p. 5</ref> For a time both spellings of his surname were current. The longer form is recorded in the press as early as March 1933;<ref>"Gate Theatre Studio", ''The Stage'', 2 March 1933, p. 10</ref> ''[[The Times]]'', ''[[The Tatler]]'' and ''[[The Era (newspaper)|The Era]]'' were among the publications intermittently using the shorter version as late as 1936.<ref>"Opera and Ballet", ''The Times'', 21 September 1936, p. 10; "Notes from Here and There", ''The Tatler'', 19 February 1936, p. 64; and "A New Rudolf", ''The Era'', 4 November 1936, pp. 8 and 9</ref>|group=n}}

[[File:Robert Helpmann and Margot Fonteyn, Facade - Anthony (17590713096).jpg|thumb|Helpmann and [[Margot Fonteyn]] in [[Frederick Ashton]]'s ''[[Façade (ballet)|Façade]]'']]
In April 1934 de Valois created a new ballet, ''[[The Haunted Ballroom]]'', with Helpmann and [[Alicia Markova]] in the leading roles. ''[[The Times]]'' commented that of the soloists Helpmann "had the greatest opportunities, and made fine use of them".<ref>"Sadler's Wells Ballet", 4 April 1934, p. 10</ref> He co-starred with Markova in ''[[Swan Lake]]'', danced in operas, and appeared at the [[Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park]].<ref name=dnb/> In 1935 he was leading dancer in the [[revue]] ''Stop Press'', with music by [[Irving Berlin]].<ref>"Adelphi Theatre", ''The Times'', 22 February 1935, p. 12</ref> At [[Sadler's Wells]] he danced the principal role in another new de Valois ballet, ''The Rake's Progress'', and in 1936 [[Frederick Ashton]] choreographed a highly romantic ballet, ''Apparitions'', to music by [[Liszt]], featuring Helpmann and the teenaged [[Margot Fonteyn]]. Sorley Walker writes that he and Fonteyn were a "perfectly matched partnership", exemplified by "their superb rendering of the Aurora pas de deux in ''[[The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)|The Sleeping Beauty]]''".<ref name=dnb/> As well as romantic leading roles, Helpmann became known for his gift for comedy. Sorley Walker singles out his roles in ''[[Coppélia]]'', Ashton's ''A Wedding Bouquet'' and de Valois's ''The Prospect Before Us''.<ref name=dnb/> Character roles included the doddery Red King in de Valois' ''[[Checkmate (ballet)|Checkmate]]'', which he first danced at the age of 28 and last danced in 1986 when he was 77.<ref name=dnb/>

Helpmann's non-ballet work in the later 1930s included his Oberon in [[Tyrone Guthrie]]'s production of ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' at the Old Vic, which also starred [[Vivien Leigh]] as Titania and [[Ralph Richardson]] as Bottom.<ref name=mnd>"Old Vic", ''The Times'', 28 December 1937, p. 10</ref> The drama critic of ''The Times'' wrote:
:It will be useless in future for Mr. Robert Helpmann to pretend that he is exclusively a dancer of the first rank. Certainly his dancing gives strength to his Oberon; he glides into imagined invisibility; but that is not all: his verse sings with his thought, his Oberon flashes with power, and presides, as Oberons do rarely, over the whole magic of the wood.<ref name=mnd/>

The doyen of London critics, [[James Agate]], pronounced Helpmann's Oberon to be, in its way, "the best I have ever seen or ever shall see".<ref>Quoted in Sorley Walker (1998a), p. 37</ref> While at the Old Vic Helpmann met the director [[Michael Benthall]]; they formed a lifelong personal partnership and frequently worked together in the theatre.<ref name=dnb/>