To mark 25 years of producing professional dancers, National Youth Ballet has produced one of its most diverse bills.

Its silver jubilee shows include excerpts from children’s favourites Toad and The Old Man of Lochnagar. Toad is based on Wind in the Willows and choreographed by patron Wayne Sleep.

They will premiere their show Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, a production marrying classical ballet with Paul Simon’s hit album Graceland, without

a tutu in sight. It shows off the company’s strong male dancers.

A new commission, Twenty Five, refers to their first ballet, Pedro the Parrot, and harks back to many of the company’s memorable ballets over a quarter of a century.

See them perform at Tonbridge’s EM Forster Theatre from Thursday, August 23 to Saturday, August 25, before heading to Sadler’s Wells in London for their gala. Tickets £15.50, seniors £14, children £10. Box office 01732 304241.