By Sarah Mills

LONDON (Reuters) - Director and dancer Carlos Acosta admits he once hated ballet as he launches the London run of his new Cuban-inspired version of Tchaikovsky's festive ballet "The Nutcracker".      Rather than the usual setting of a small town in Germany in the 1820s, "Carlos Acosta's Nutcracker in Havana" still takes place on Christmas Eve but the backdrop is Cuba in the early 20th century.      With ballet at its heart, the style of dance is varied too and Acosta said it's going down well with audiences and attracting a younger crowd.      "This show, by using the Cuban influence, the ballet, the Afro-Cuban movement and also the contemporary, is...reaching out to new audiences," the acclaimed dancer said in an interview at the Southbank Centre where the show is currently on.     After pitching the idea a few years ago, Acosta choreographed and directed the show which stars Cuban dancers from his company Acosta Danza.     "I think it is so personal to Carlos in a way that some of his previous work perhaps doesn't have that connection because it represents Cuba ... and tells the story of a country that's having a really tough time," said Stephen Crocker, the show's creative producer.    Acosta said the show, which includes visual touches linked to his childhood home in Havana, offers audiences a sense "of how wonderful and beautiful was Cuba in the 1920s and thirties".    "Whereas 'The Nutcracker' normally is a period play where you have...the well-to-do family, for us...it is basically... the opposite. This piece plays in a very humble house."    Reflecting on his own journey into dance, Acosta, who was born in Havana in 1973, said he first "hated ballet" as in the 1980s he was more into breakdancing. But once he saw professional ballet his opinion changed.     "I never considered myself a ballet dancer as such...I could dance salsa ...and breakdancing as well. And then ballet was something that I did later on," he said.

(Reporting by Sarah Mills; Editing by Toby Chopra)