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It's with the character of the Nutcracker that things get weird. Throughout the ballet, Junor Souza dances a masked version of the character while Vadim Muntagirov, who also plays the nephew of the magician Drosselmeyer (Fabian Reimair), dances him unmasked. The very apparent differences between the two dancers don't make things any less perplexing. \"First he's black, then he's white. Who is he, Michael Jackson?\" demanded one audience member in the first interval.

It isn't always like that. Some years Prokofiev's Cinderella gets a look in. But for Christmas 2011 the British ballet scene is looking almost American, with productions of the Tchaikovsky evergreen at the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, both at home and at the O2; beamed live to cinemas from the Mariinsky in St Petersburg and City Ballet in New York; at Sadler's Wells in a spunky re-write by Matthew Bourne; and in a staging for English National Ballet by Wayne Eagling, a project whose difficulties were brutally exposed earlier this year in a BBC4 mini-series. Given the pressure to appeal to folk who loathed the company's previous Nutcracker as well as the usual families and office partiers, it's understandable that Eagling played it safe (though it may not have looked that way on screen when ENB's dancers were left having to make bits up on opening night because the choreography wasn't finished - but that's history now).

Wayne Eagling's production is the fifth to have been mounted by English National Ballet in the last 25 years. There are some very good things in it: the opening skating scene, for example, is Christmas-card perfect. Yet the show still comes no closer to a clear, satisfying narrative than any of its predecessors. What scuppers this one is ambition. Eagling tries to add psychological and narrative flesh to the two main threads in Clara's dream story: her fear of the marauding Mouse King, and her dawning adolescent love for Drosselmeyer's nephew.

The Independent says: \"[ENB] dance The Nutcracker with energy and understanding, brightening up [Wayne Eagling]'s uneven production. From Micaela Infante's child Clara to Daria Klimentov's grown-up ballerina, the dancing brings real fizz [but the] staging has muddled storytelling, with some bizarre divertissement dances and a confusing switch in the hero's identity.\"

At the Linbury Theatre William Tuckett's Faeries is enjoying a revival. First aired in 2008, it tells of a boy (Femi Oyewole) locked overnight in Kensington Gardens during the blitz. As barrage balloons float overhead, he enters an enchanted realm where he is caught up in a struggle between good and evil fairies. The fairies are beautiful, gossamer-winged puppets, magically animated and voiced by Blind Summit Theatre, and Tuckett's choreography is fluid and inventive. Equally family-friendly is Matthew Hart's [Peter Farmer] and the Wolf, performed by students of the Royal Ballet School. Sergei Polunin is the Wolf, but the show is slyly stolen from under his nose by Chisato Katsura's slinky, insinuating Cat. Sharing the main stage double-bill is Frederick Ashton's Tales of Beatrix Potter. These are trying times, but a world in which Laura Morera is dancing Pig-Wig can't be all bad.

While it's common to cast separate dancers as the Nutcracker and the Prince, it's rarely so confusing as here, with the two roles switching several times mid-number. What's more, has no one noticed how tricky it is for the Nutcracker to keep his mask on while lifting a girl above his head? It's akin to lifting an 80lb dumb-bell while balancing an After Eight on your nose. The necessary adjustments shouldn't be hard to make. What may prove more elusive is the element of magic that's at present largely missing. On the night I went, it flared briefly but brightly in Elena Glurdjidze's Sugarplum variation, and Arionel Vargas's excitingly fast travelling turns. But given that Nutcracker is a first ballet for many people, it has to deliver more than a good finale. 'Nutcracker' to 30 Dec (0871 911 0200); 'Faeries' to 2 Jan (020-7304 4000)

This teen romance, darkened by a few surviving hints of Hoffman, simplifies the story but creates problems of its own. Most glaring is [Drosselmeyer], who can't be entirely got rid of. Instead, [Wayne Eagling] has him hanging confusingly around the ballet like a self-important guest. Without him, the story loses a dimension of enchantment. Eagling and his designer Peter Farmer retain certain quintessential Nutcracker moments: the fabulously growing Christmas tree, the journey to the Kingdom of Sweets. But they feel glossed over, more like incidental colour to Clara's dream than part of the plot's deep magic.

So far, so nicely detailed. But where [Wayne Eagling] loses his way is in the transformation scene, where the tree grows and the comforts of hearth and home become a frightening land. Tchaikovsky's music (beautifully conducted by Gavin Sutherland) makes this quite explicit; but Eagling muffs its effects. Clara wakes from a dream, and is suddenly transformed into the adult Daria Klimentova. At the point where the tree should grow, the Nutcracker (Junor Souza) appears from a cupboard and dances a rather limp solo. The same lack of dramatic impact afflicts the whole scene. The battle between the rats and the soldiers has a lot of movement and not much purpose. Indeed, the King Rat survives to follow Clara and her Nutcracker into the land of snow, where he chases around among the whirring snowflakes.

[Wayne Eagling]'s choreography is fluid and attractive but his storytelling can be fuzzy. The switches between Drosselmeyer's nephew (Vadim Muntagirov in blue) and the life-size Nutcracker (Junor Souza in scarlet) were confusing. The Russians could use more pepper, and while the Arabian dance for Arionel Vargas and four harem-panted houris was charming, the orientalist subplot, complete with shackled slave and bullwhip, was a peculiar (if hilarious) lapse of taste. Eagling, with his Royal Ballet pedigree, was never going to mess too much with the traditional grand pas de deux, danced with dazzling assurance at the opening by Daria Klimentova and Vadim Muntagirov. Klimentova has been an ENB principal since 1996 but she has never looked better. Her long legs and jump-jet elevation give her a girlish leap that sails through space. In the exquisite Sugar Plum Fairy solo her tiptoeing pas de bourree seemed wired to Tchaikovsky's twinkling celesta. Muntagirov, 20, lands even the biggest jumps with tidy toes folded automatically into fifth position and his feet flutter through beaten steps like hummingbird's wings.