Well.
We got up today with little jet lag. Well, Philip got up without jet lag. I, who have not changed the computer time, spent some time awake last night, trying to catch up on my writing (and succeeded). We got up this morning and went down to breakfast, which is included in the room rate, and then, after making contact with Dan (Glaser, for whose 10th anniversary of his marriage to Nathalie we made this trip) we set off from Kensington to Victoria.
We were looking for the theatre where Billy Elliott the Musical, tonight’s fare, was playing — the Victoria Palace around the corner from the station. We walked for about an hour (Philip says “at least” an hour). It was a great walk, with some sunshine and some cloud (just as the weatherpeople said), not too hot, not at all cold, with some cool little detours on the way. Finally, around two, we arrived in Victoria, and toddled along to the theatre, which was open, and picked up the tickets.
Now we had three hours to kill before dinner, reserved for 5:30, and the show at 7:30.
Mr. Burrows has this great idea. There’s a double-decker bus tour — not the one we went on in 1990, but its competitor, the Big Bus — that does a circle around London, travelling over most, if not all, of the bridges, and going through the most famous areas. It was a two-hour tour, so we took it. For £20 each we got tickets that were valid for forty-eight hours, which allowed us to get off the bus and get on at any stop on the route, and which will also cover a number of walking tours. We did the whole circle, not getting off the bus, and returned to Victoria in time for our reservation at a French bistro, Chez Gérard. We ate French food and then trotted off to the show.
Well.
It was a great show.
If you liked the movie, you’ll love the show. The story worked well as a movie, and works extremely well as a stage musical. The key seems to be in understanding the medium. Rather than be faithful to every single scene in the movie, the musical re-interprets the whole thing. Yes, the story’s the same, the characters are the same, the highs and the lows are the same, the conflicts are the same. But the writers understood that musical theatre is about Highs and Lows, and that subtleties are lost — or, at least, delivered differently, in music and movement and song. Something that the team behind The Color Purple could have benefitted from.
Well. Of course, the whole thing stands or falls on whether this kid playing Billy can actually dance.
Hello.
The Billy we saw (there are four), Colin Bates, was brilliant. I hear they all are, but I wouldn’t know about the others. This one was brilliant enough for Mr. Philip Burrows to stand and give him (and the show) an ovation. The last people-shows he gave ovations to were Christine Ebersole (Grey Gardens) and Cherry Jones (Doubt, last year). He stood up at the end of Jersey Boys, but I’m not convinced it was all to do with the quality of the production. Don’t get me wrong. It was, indeed, a good musical; but the seats we were sitting in were extraordinarily cramped and I have a feeling that Philip needed to stand up.
Be that as it may. These seats weren’t cramped, and he stood when Billy, sorry, Colin, took his bow.
So if you are coming to London and are looking for a damn good musical to see, forget Blood Brothers, which has been overrated for a very long time. If you want to see how a musical about northern working class people ought to be made, go see Billy Elliott. And it’s coming to Broadway in 2008!
Tiddly-pop for now.
