Skip over navigation
Billy Elliot the Musical
-
-
Victoria Palace Theatre, 8 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5EA
-
Rating:
-
-
- A confession: sometimes I lazily assume that all long-running West End musicals are soulless corporate juggernauts unworthy of my attention. A revelation: ‘Billy Elliott’, one year on, is an electrifying, ballsy, compassionate and political show. Musicals tend to tell stories of individual triumph. It would have been easy for Lee Hall and Elton John’s show to use Billy’s individual ballet-dancing success to absolve his Durham community’s wider distress in the midst of the 1984 miners’ strike. But Stephen Daldry’s production is as much about the community’s struggle as Billy’s. ‘It’s everybody’s future, it’s everybody’s past,’ as one lyric has it. ‘It’s not about a bairn who wants to dance.’
The show’s even more notable achievement is to keep the miners’ doomed campaign entertaining and inspiring, without soft-soaping it. We’re shown the in-fighting, we’re shown the narrow-mindedness - which leads to Billy being thought a ‘poof’ for harbouring dance ambitions. But we’re also shown a group of working class people who look out for one another; a communitarianism that Thatcher (the butt of a gleefully abusive song) and later Blair (who crops up here preaching socialism - ho ho! - to a miners’ welfare club) would do their best to destroy. What Billy says about ballet, one might equally say about the ‘solidarity’ of which his people sing: ‘it’s like forgetting who you are and at the same time something makes you whole.’
Meanwhile, Billy’s story - notwithstanding the success of the film - has really found its medium in this musical. His whole journey - from hope through frustration to his dreams being realised - can now be expressed through dance. The closing sequence to Act One, when Billy’s claustrophobia is manifested in a furious tap-dance directed against a wall of police riot shields, is awesomely powerful. Colin Bates is a spirited Billy and Philip Whitchurch touching as the dad who swallows his prejudices to support his kid. Perhaps Billy’s cross-dressing pal Michael, singing ‘what’s wrong with expressing yourself?’ in high heels and a cocktail dress, is stretching things a bit. But at least it’s theatrical, and humane and funny, like much else in this marvellous British musical.
- Bookmark
-
-
-
-
-
- |
- Send to a friend
-
Details
-
Victoria Palace Theatre, 8 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5EA
- 0870 040 0046
- Category: West End
- Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Thur & Sat Mats 2.30pm
- Price: £17.50-£60. Runs 3hrs. Booking to Dec 20
- Tube: Victoria
Other shows on tonight
-
Hairspray, Shaftesbury Theatre
-
Brief Encounter, Cinema on the Haymarket
-
Jersey Boys, Prince Edward Theatre
-
Never So Good, National Theatre, Lyttelton
-
Into the Hoods, Novello Theatre
-
King Lear, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Pygmalion, Old Vic
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe
-
The Revenger's Tragedy, National Theatre, Olivier
-
The Chalk Garden, Donmar Warehouse
-
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Pygmalion, Old Vic
-
Black Watch, Barbican Theatre
-
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe
-
The Revenger's Tragedy, National Theatre, Olivier
-
Torn, Arcola Theatre
-
The Frontline, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Zorro, Garrick Theatre
-
Hangover Square, Finborough Theatre
-
All shows on tonight
4 comments
A production which is just a little bit heavy on the political commentary on the time depicted in the story but, once past that, it becomes a musical production well worthy of the original story, containing highs, lows, comedy, great music, super choreography, providing a memorable night out.
Like the film? The musical has all that it had, and more.
Wonderful stories woven together and overlapping on many levels.
The accomplishment of the young dancers taking the part of Billy, and the supporting cast will lift your spirits... excellence CAN be achieved, still.
You'll have the music in your head for days.
Funny and sad by turns, a great rollercoaster.
It's a week later and a continent removed and I'm still reeling from the effects of Billy Elliott. The entire production was brilliant - this is the best musical I have ever seen. The children were so natural, the grandmother right on, and the miners in their tutus touched my heart.
I have seen many shows in the West End but this is by far the best. The acting, dancing and singing is simply superb. However the language (swearing) used in this performance is a major factor and for me it really caught the moment and made it that extra bit special but for some people it may be offensive. Simply wonderful, *****stars!