The city of Hollywood, just north of Miami, is a shiny coastal corridor of freeways and speedboats and gleaming condos lining Florida’s Atlantic shoreline. A 41-storey Trump tower dominates Ocean Drive, looking right at home among the golf buggies, petrol fumes and glittering sunshine. It all feels a very long way from the antique cultured elegance of Covent Garden’s Royal Ballet — and from southern Ukraine.

I’ve come to meet Sergei Polunin, 30, one of the greatest dancers on the planet. At barely 20, the Ukrainian became the youngest male principal in Royal Ballet history; his speed and power, elevation and “line” earning comparisons with Nureyev and Baryshnikov. By 21 he had become infamous as the bad boy of ballet, partying hard on LSD and