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PETER BROWN Return to previous page Peter Brown's Review Index
Billy Elliot
11 May 2005
A vision of hell appeared to me last night at the Victoria Palace! A huge effigy of Margaret Thatcher, maybe 20 or 30 feet tall, stood glowering at me from the darkness. And if that wasn’t enough, dozens of smaller Margaret Thatchers gleefully pranced around the larger version like crazed goblin apprentices. I pinched myself with all the strength I could muster to rouse from what surely had to be the worst nightmare of my life. However, it was neither nightmare nor a premonition of hell, but rather a freaky Christmas scene from Billy Elliot, the Musical. Chilling nevertheless. This show is about a young boy growing up in a mining community in the North East of England during the early 1980s when the Conservative Government under the frighteningly determined Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher – decided to take on the powerful miners’ union, and won. What happened in that period not only changed the UK political climate forever, but also changed the world. Thatcher’s ideas – harsh medicine to cure deep-rooted ills, unbending political strategies, taking on powerful groups, controlling inflation with high unemployment, selling off state-owned assets, all combined with the concept that there is ‘no such thing as society’ – were more revolutionary than even Marx and Engels could possibly have dreamed of. And what’s more, those ideas were eagerly taken up and honed by other Governments right around the globe. That’s the background, now back to the plot … Billy’s father and brother are miners who are called-out on strike. The harsh reality of a family already living on the edge is thus intensified. The family – at least Billy and his father – still grieve for Billy’s mother, and his grandmother needs constant attention because of apparent dementia. Billy reluctantly gets despatched each week by his father to attend boxing lessons at the local community hall, but is distracted by Mrs Wilkinson and her ballet class. Gradually, Billy is drawn to dance because of his need for self-expression in the midst of a reality that is almost a cultural desert. But confrontation follows, as Billy’s father and brother are not only fighting for their economic survival but also their dignity as men. They perceive no value in activities like ballet, which they regard as the realm of ‘poofs’ (a quaintly English, derogatory term for homosexuals). Resolution is effected when Billy’s father realises his son might have talent and make good one day – ‘What if he might be a star’? And the mining community rallies to the needs of one of its young sons. However, as Billy’s brother astutely observes, allowing the individual to flourish and follow his own path, inevitably leads to the downfall of the community. In Billy Elliot The Musical, there’s much more than just song and dance. First seeing the light of day in 2000 as a BAFTA award winning and Oscar nominated film starring Jamie Bell, ‘Billy Elliot’ is once again directed by Stephen Daldry. Although faithful to the original, Daldry has not rested on his laurels but has taken the story to a new depth of grittiness and reality, producing in many ways a better version. But being ‘live’ and dealing with a large number of child actors has its pitfalls. Apparently, the show has been in preview for some time, hit by overlong running times and subsequent script and cast changes. But it’s not hard to see that this show was always going to be difficult to stage given the need to find multiple young actors to play the lead roles. In fact no less than 3 youngsters share the title role – on this occasion, it was Liam Mower’s turn in the spotlight. And he quickly showed that he is a courageous, skilled and acrobatic young dancer. Being hauled into the flies on a wire is certainly not my idea of heaven, but he accomplished it with aplomb to the gasps of a ‘gob-smacked’ audience. But Liam is not really a singer, and his acting certainly lacked that streetwise quality which would be essential for survival in a mining village in the North East. For me, his playing was rather too ‘nice’ to be believable. But he certainly made up for it with his dancing and acrobatics – at one point tumbling in an almost matter-of-fact way from the top of a piano. I kept my comments about the music rather muted during the show as Sir Elton John and his partner were sitting just three seats away from me. Thankfully, I can be more forthright here. Because the music, though it has some engaging tunes (notably the one sung by Billy’s grandmother) and some stirring dance numbers which get the feet tapping, it’s largely unexceptional – not what I would call Elton’s best work, and I think if he were asked his opinion in private, he might say the same. Still, it’s good enough to carry the action on at a pace and keep everyone very well entertained. When you put juveniles on stage and get them to do amazing fetes, you’re almost bound to win over the audience. And it doesn’t fail on this occasion – there was a rapturous standing ovation at the end. But I worry when child actors use expletives and the audience laughs. Natural though the reaction may be, it left me wondering what kind of society we are living in when we don’t allow swearing on TV before the 9pm ‘watershed’ and would baulk at our own children swearing in company, but are happy to be entertained by children merrily doing it on stage. Yes, it’s reality and true to life. But it’s also an odd state of affairs. And that in a sense is what Billy Elliot is actually all about – the way communities and individuals interact. With songs, dance, and more than dose of tragic elements to bring out the handkerchiefs and tissues, Billy Elliot’s got an almost perfect mix of magical ingredients to keep audiences flooding through the doors for some time to come. Peter Brown
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