This show falls in a tradition of emotionally powerful, thematically northern based, working-class stories that deliver more than they seem to offer. A little lad struggles to overcome the deep-seated prejudices of his coal mining community to get himself accepted as a dancer. Self-belief and actualization, parental love and pressure, tradition and bigotry and the support of a mentor all add to rather than confuse the unfolding themes carried by the plot. The apparent tyranny of the group expressed through the notion of solidarity gives way to the kind of support that breeds a lifelong allegiance of the sort that folk not privileged to grow up in such an environment can only be envious of.
It’s one thing to base a film around a very juve’ lead, another an expensive stage musical. A lot hangs on young, narrow shoulders, which Atlas-like, have to bear the artistic weight and critical fortunes of the production. Happily, last night’s member of the quartet of Billys was Haydn May who danced and acted out of his skin in the kind of performance any actor of any age would be proud of.
Credit for this must no doubt be shared with director, Stephen Daldry, who has coaxed his charge into a no-nonsense, gush-free performance, stripped of all sentimentality, which as anybody who knows anything about theatre knows is just what the doctor ordered. Moreover he manages to get all the little darlings to swear like troopers without blushing. (One suspects they enjoyed the experience) The tectonic strains of ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ are given due weight without rubbing the audience’s nose in the injustice of it all and we are left to ponder for ourselves the fallout from the destruction of these close-knit communities. The show is a paradigm of the personal story set in a broader context and Daldry manages the balance with skill and sensitivity.
Sir Elton’s score and Lee Hall’s lyrics move and develop the emotional progress of the show without holding things up with any of the ‘look at me’ flummery that can bedevil lesser productions.
In an initially puzzling tinkering with chronology the final scene from the film of the fully fledged dancer leaping onto stage with the Royal Ballet is transformed into a dreamlike fantasy of Billy dancing with his older self and brought forward to a time before his leave-taking for White Lodge. This allows greater scope for Peter Darling’s choreography to make its mark on both the younger and older Billys whilst retaining the emotional punch as he soars, literally and figuratively on his imagination. At the same time it moves the thematic climax of the play from the personal to the social.
This production is everything a good musical should be: it has something to say and does it whilst moving us with the human struggle to be oneself against all the odds. ★★★★★ Graham Wyles 27th October 2016
