Review by Laurence Sach
THE red carpet was out, the Easington Colliery Brass Band was playing and Stephen Daldry, director of both film and stage version of Billy Elliot, was in attendance.
There was no missing the significance of Billy’s homecoming to the North East - the first time in the production’s eleven year history.
At heart this is a story about aspiration and of one boy’s particular dream – to dance. But it is also the story of a family and a community and the struggle to survive the divisiveness of the year-long miners’ strike.
We are in Easington, the coastal mining town just eleven miles south of Sunderland. Originally the town was lightly disguised as Everington but now, as the lodge banner flies in, we are in no doubt.
Billy’s adventure begins when he is dragooned unexpectedly into the ballet class at the local Miners’ Welfare. Under Mrs Wilkinson’s questionable tutelage his hopes of achieving a place at the Royal Ballet School rise only to be dashed by the disruption of the strike and the prejudice of his family – ‘only poofs do ballet’. Annette McLaughlin brings the right balance of disdain and determination to the teacher’s role, proving a fiery adversary when dealing with Billy’s bullying brother, Tony. His dad, a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal by Martin Walsh, holds the one-parent family together after the early death of Billy’s mum, tenderly reincarnated by Nikki Gerrard.
The accolades of the evening, however, must go to the young cast and especially to Haydn May as Billy (what a way to spend an 11th birthday) and Sunderland’s own Elliot Stiff as Michael, Billy’s friend and close confidant. The production offers them numerous opportunities to shine and none more so than when Billy discovers Michael doing what is becoming natural to him - dressing up in his sister’s clothes. With Billy encouraged to join-in the scene takes flight into a surreal world of giant tap-dancing dresses with Billy and Michael in the lead.
Billy’s own fantasy is played out in one of the most affecting scenes in the musical. Discovered dancing at the miners’ welfare and rejected by his father Billy begins to dance. The stage opens out and he is joined by his Older Self, Luke Cinque-White, in a ballet that sends him quite literally ‘flying like a bird’.
With a rousing response from the Sunderland audience this really is ‘welcome home Billy’.
Until April 30
Box Office: 0844 871 3022
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