Ballet dancers Denis Rodkin and Anna Nikulina at the Bolshoi Ballet’s Nutcracker performance that will be screened today

When German author ETA Hoffman wrote a story in 1816 about a Christmas toy that comes to life and defeats an evil mouse king, little would he have imagined that by the end of the century, his work would have lent itself to becoming a classic ballet - a two-act performance the world would celebrate for centuries to come.