BEHIND THE SCENES: Live Cinema Broadcast of BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL, Victoria Palace Theatre, September 28 2014

Unlike tens of millions of fans worldwide, I had seen neither the original film nor its West End / Broadway musical adaptation. Of course, I did know of the basic plot, the controversial sweary bits, its near ten year run at the Victoria Palace Theatre - and I knew of the Miners' Strike of 1984-85 and can easily recall the collection buckets rattled earnestly in gentrifying Islington.

Now, on a Sunday afternoon in front of a full house with thousands more watching in cinemas (cameras capturing the event), what Billy be like?

Well, Elliott Hanna is brilliant as our hero, recalling another spellbinding boy called Elliott - Henry Thomas's in ET. I expected the kid to be able to dance, but he can sing and he can really act too. Speaking backstage afterwards, the huge presence on stage shrinks to an 11-year-old boy, arcing his neck up to the voice recorders. He was just eight years old when he auditioned and is now following in Billy's footsteps from the post-industrial North (Liverpool in his case) to London. Hanna would like to work in films in the future and, if he can handle the imposing obstacle of transition from child star to adult actor, he surely will, as the lad has talent to burn.

And he won't want for examples, as he was joined onstage by 24 previous incarnations (and the three others sharing this season's eight shows per week schedule) for a joyous mash-up of jumping, lifting and dancing - the collective noun for the group surely being "a balletomane" of Billys. The sight prompted the thought in my mind about why we haven't found out what happened to Billy in London - a sequel will surely come one day.

Deka Walmsley, as Billy's insensitive and desensitised dad, and Chris Grahamson ,as a big brother almost as horrific as Billy Casper's in Kes, lend excellent support and Ruthie Henshall, though she confessed to be unable to be as "see if I care" as dance teacher Mrs Wilkinson purports to be, is as splendid as ever.

Shows don't get runs like Billy Elliot without being big ol' crowdpleasers, and, director Stephen Daldry and writer Lee Hall press all the right buttons. Billy misses his dead mother, but finds another in Mrs Wilkinson, who finds the love in him that she misses at home; meanwhile Billy's dad Jackie learns to be as proud of his son, the dancer as he would like to be of his other son, the striking miner. It's not Dickensian, but it is Dickens - every character just so, every resolution just so too.

A few things grate: adults and kids swearing at each other tend not to be as funny, repeated over and over again, in real life; the Miners' Strike was (inevitably) a little more complex than as presented; and the show is often a bit too loud and shouty for my tastes. But the audiences keep turning up and, come the curtain, standing up, for a reason - it's because it's f***ing good, kiddah!

To post a comment, you must register and login.