Arts Club Theatre Company
Billy Elliot book and lyrics by Lee Hall, music by Elton John

Dates and Venue May 12 – July 10, 2016, Tues – Thurs 7.30pm, Fri & Sat 8pm, matinees Wed at 1:30 PM, Sat & Sun at 2pm | Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, 2750 Granville Street

Director Bill Millerd Choreographer Valerie Easton Musical Director Ken Cormier Set Designer Ted Roberts Costume Designer Alison Green Lighting Designer Marsha Sibthorpe Sound Designer Chris Daniels Ballet Adviser Suzanne Ouellette Stage Manager Caryn Fehr

Reviewer John Jane


Billy Elliot (The musical) is a stage musical adaptation of the British film by the same name. As with the film version, the play is set in County Durham, England. It centres around an 11-year-old boy who, to the chagrin of his blue-collar widowed father and macho older brother takes up ballet in the middle of the 1984 industrial action by the National Union of Mineworkers.

Turning undersized movies into over-sized musicals is risky with the best material. But Billy Elliot perhaps succeeds largely due to Elton John's music set to Lee Hall’s sharp lyrics. It doesn’t have the manipulative slickness of Disney – but, in this case it’s a good thing. In this stage version there is a gentle roughness and humour to the storyline that allows us to see the humanity.

This ambitious Artsclub production certainly gets the important things right. Not least, Ted Roberts’ industrial style sets, including a gloomy Miner’s Welfare Hall and the pairs of mining derricks on each side of the stage, that evoke the hardships that people of the region accept as normal. Valerie Easton’s choreography, led by Nolan Fahey as Billy, is allowed to stand as the show’s centre piece. The production uses a Brechtian device of juxtaposing paradox scenes in the same location and time frame. The most graphical example is the conflict between the miners and police taking place in Mrs Wilkinson's dance class.

But as with many ambitious productions, there are miscues: The scenes that have Billy’s Mom walking on from the side of the stage offering Billy advice (from the grave) might have been given more empyreal authority. Braithwaite, exuberantly played by Gordon Roberts, is usually seen wearing a Newcastle United soccer jersey – this would be considered a suicide mission anywhere in County Durham. I might have been the only person in the audience that didn’t care all that much for the cross-dressing scene. I saw it as an attempt at Broadway cuteness, although the context is topical in 2016.

Director Bill Millerd has assembled a large (I counted twenty) and talented cast. David Adams as a union convenor, Warren Kimmel as Billy’s dad and Caitriona Murphy as Mrs. Wilkinson turn in multidimensional performances and even manage a decent job of the Geordie dialect that many Brits have a problem understanding.

However, it’s the younger cast members that steal all the scenes. Valin Shinyei who plays Billy’s best friend Michael is hilarious and Mrs. Wilkinson’s ballet students show a natural talent for comedy.

Nolan Fahey acquits himself well in the title role of young Billy. His dancing is first rate, his singing is at least adequate and his movement around the other actors shows true potential as an actor. Still, he does miss the authenticity that Jamie Bell (who, like myself, grew up in County Durham) brought to the role in the film.

The Arts Club production wisely opts for a poignant finale, rather than the celebratory one seen in the film version. The final scene has Billy standing alone with a suitcase about to leave for the Royal Ballet School in London, watching his father and brother return to the coal face after a year-long strike.

© 2016 John Jane