Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot

05 May, 2009
by: SpoonfedMeg

As I sit comfortably in my seat about halfway through the first act of Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre, I get the sense that despite your usual song-and-dance numbers, this show offers something a bit different than most West End musicals. Whether it's a unique approach to music within the show, a surprisingly earnest and engaging cast of children or the RBC quality ballet performances, Billy Elliot stands head and shoulders over most commercial West End tourist fare.

Billy certainly ticks the classic musical theatre boxes. There are the breakout songs shoehorned into dialogue, ensemble dance numbers and, in one notable case, dancing womenswear but there's another level of music and performance as well: in addition to traditional musical numbers, a series of musical themes weave seamlessly into dialogue and action. One song in particular – the somewhat ominous Solidarity – crescendos, fades, disappears entirely then rises again throughout multiple scenes. It's musical storytelling that works in conjunction with, not separately from, the dialogue.

Billy Elliot is the story of a young miner's son living through the worst of the Northern England miners' strikes during Thatcher's leadership and who wants nothing more than to be a ballet dancer. It's the child actors who steal the show – particularly Billy, played this evening by Fox Jackson-Keen, and Michael, tonight with Lewis Cope in the role. Often young actors can seem overly theatrical or too focused on their performance to take audiences out of the theatre and into the story. In Billy, however, so much of the plot seems to revolve around the ways in which the children's lives are affected by the fears, pride and desperation of the miners' union and the town, a feeling that comes through in the acting of the children.

Though I have been generally pleased with the show so far, no amount of hype could have prepared me for what is now occurring on the stage. For those who've seen with the movie version of Billy, the scene is familiar as Billy breaks into a frantic dance of anger and frustration. However on stage, live, with the thumping drums and stage lighting, this solo dance performance is staggering. When Billy collapses in a heap at the end of the scene, the entire audience is on their feet, myself included.

There is nothing in the second act that quite lives up to the heart-racing excitement of Billy's dance but it's a solid performance nonetheless and the energy of that one scene is enough to carry the audience along. A second, more polished but less dramatic ballet number also draws loud applause from the crowd at its finish and the final standing ovation at the curtain call is sincere and enthusiastic. Billy Elliot may be classified as a West End musical, but with creative use of musical numbers and world class dancing, there's something special about this show that will keep it running alongside the biggest West End names for a long time to come.

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SpoonfedMeg