Who are the principals this time? Which country are they from? What will they bring to the star roles with this hearteningly regenerative and constantly reflowering company? We know that they will always be young and fresh.

For this tour they have struck silver in their Prince Florimund and his combination with their Princess Aurora that I saw in the matinee. A last-minute recruit, Frenchman , Sebastien Quenere, is like none of their noble princes in recent years, and Aayaka Ichikawa, from Japan, combines with him in a way that less fortunate successors to her from the East were unable because of less effective leading males.

Quenere brings a genuine power and expansiveness for one thing. For another, his acting is believable. His demeanour and stature gave him gravitas in Act 2 and radiance in Act 3. His energy is unreserved and his personality radiates a genuine joy. Altogether, he has a sizeable stage presence and to speak with him after the performance was to realise this stems from an unusual confidence and passion about life itself, almost an ebullience.

This is his first tour in Britain and it is striking to hear an obvious bon viveur in the making telling me that he says he finds scary the way our young society feels the need to indulge in excesses, and how its outlook and horizons are so often limited to the influential sphere of the media. Here is a man whose national culture has provided him with values of strength and substance that seem confidence-imbuing in itself.

His command in the Prince's grand pas de deux variation was genuinely exciting. He revels in this and Worthing audiences were a trifle deprived of something more spectacular because the size of the stage prevented him allowing himself full rein and elevation.

Ichikawa's Aurora was a delight from start to finish. Her innocence and joie de vivre, her neat figure and transport, the expressiveness in her legs and feet, none had any hint of affectedness or quirk. I would have liked to have seen the evening performance and made the comparion with the VFB's new Italian, Martina Angioloni. As the role fully intends, and requires, Ichikawa lights up the stage.

Eva Koniavitou as the Lilac fairy has a similar effect, although her light is more of a glow. She is magical, yet without any veneer of mysticism and her benevolence is freely given.

Carabosse, in the VFB stagings of recent years, is an alternative fairy rather than a witch: she has no cloak, hood or evil props, just a fiery, tattered dress. It is hard to be frightened of her and, in that straitjacket, Marina Siemeonoglou, who is half-Greek, has to work hard with limbs and eyes - and does so commendably.

A delight of VFB is the depth of this enthusiasm and accomplishment beyond the principals. The ensemble dancing is always
unified, both in rhythm and look. And all the company are capable soloists and the girls gave full value in their various individual appearances a fairies or court people. Inside the ballet world, the dancers and artistes they produce go forth with a respected and sought-after accolade.

That goes for boys as well as girls. There are fewer of them, of course, but all three are a telling presence.

They are cavaliers in the prologue and later, in the divertissement, Gledis Tase made a cheeky cat with Claire Ann Elliott's coquettish female, Carl Hale was a wolf on a hot tin roof opposite Lucy Lowndes' ultimately submissive Little Red Riding Hood, and Dario Brevi, another Italian, was as light as a jay and as widewinged as a gull in the Bluebird duet with Melanie Cox (who was Clara in The Nutcracker last time here). Brevi is brief on figure - waist size 25, he laughed later - and they don't seem to make all-in-ones narrow enough for him.

Staging-wise, Act 2 was the most rewarding, in its subdued lighting setting the supernatural in which the Lilac Fairy gives Florimund his preview glimpse of his princess, then takes her to where she sleeps so he can awaken her. The movement and acting matched.

The two acid tests set by the original scenario of the Sleeping Beauty ballet are the end of Act 1, the committing to sleep of the court by the Lilac Fairy and the enveloping of the palace in undergrowth, and the Panorama at the end of Act 2 where she conveys Florimund through the forest to the palace on a boat along a river.

The second can prove optional and this production substituted a dialogue between she and Florimund.

But Tchaikowsky's score makes something obligatory for the first. In a small company with insufficient courtiers to succumb gradually to unconsciousness, and limited scenic effects to drag around on the road, there is a problem and a frustration. VFB, and they are not alone in this as dealers in travelling one-nighters, are still waiting for someone, either a musical director or a producer, to come up with a prize suggestion.

I must put on my thinking cap, too, I guess.