Deborah Bull

The peer and former Royal Ballet principal hopes her creative and inspirational drive will lead to the role of the lord speaker, writes Sarah Crompton, Observer dance critic

- Sarah Crompton, Observer dance critic

When Deborah Bull was principal with the Royal Ballet in 1993, a group of dancers were invited to work with William Forsythe, the most daring and experimental of all the neoclassical choreographers. She not only jumped at the chance but made the most of every second.

“Deborah was quite confident with Forsythe,” her fellow principal Leanne Benjamin remembers.

“She realised what an opportunity it was to be working with him.”

That curiosity and willingness to learn characterised Bull’s time at the Royal Ballet. It has also been one of the most notable qualities of her subsequent career, which has led to her, as Baroness Bull of Aldwych, seeking election as speaker of the House of Lords.

She was born in Derby, but brought up in Kent and Lincolnshire, and had three sisters. After her mother’s death, her father, a vicar, remarried and had two more daughters. Bull started dancing at the age of seven in a local school above a fish and chip shop in Skegness. At the age of 11, she won a place at the Royal Ballet School. At that point her knowledge of ballet was restricted to one professional production and the photographs in the Princess Tina ballet album she got every Christmas. “I thought, that’s nice, I'll do that.”

She joined the Royal Ballet in 1981, becoming a principal in 1992, at a time when Benjamin, Darcey Bussell and Sylvie Guillem were also in its top ranks. In that company, she was a strong, interesting dancer but never quite a star. Yet she stood out for her intelligence and a determination to have a life beyond dance.

While still dancing, she campaigned for healthy eating and better physiotherapy for dancers, crediting a former physiotherapist boyfriend for transforming her thinking about the need to build a strong body for dancing — using strategies that are now widespread but were virtually ignored in her time as a performer.