Hey everyone,
I wrote most of this whilst on trains travelling back
from uni as at the moment I rarely have any other time to do anything other
than uni work or I’m doing shifts at my jobs and voluntary work, so I apologise for any errors or mistakes in this one, I just wanted to post something. So, please enjoy and do let me know if you have seen
any of the other "tour Billys" and tell me what their performance was like! I thought I'd post it now as the production has gone to Hamburg and is out of the UK now which is sad.
I saw Billy Elliot the UK Tour production on Saturday 10
th
December 2016 at 2:30pm at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. We had no
understudies I believe. When I’m talking about we in this one I’m talking about
myself and my younger sister who is 14 and a big dancer so this is one of her
favourite musicals alongside Wicked, she also hates Thatcher like I do (we have a lot of ex-miners in our family!)! We sat
about 6 rows from the front in the stalls pretty much dead centre. For this one I think
I’ll just talk mostly about the cast and the differences to the London production and
how I felt they were as I did the rest in more detail in my last post.
We actually felt that this production was better than the
version we saw in London a few years ago and we both enjoyed it more. I don’t
know if this was because of the cast, the music or just that the production
felt fresher because the team had finally had a proper chance to make
substantial changes after finishing in London after such a long time. I
read/watched other people’s blog and reviews about the production and people
who seem to have loved it in London don’t seem to like lots of the changes, I am not sure why, maybe because lots of them went regularly so got used
to it being a certain way. I did love it in London, but overall I felt this
production was a bit slicker and more energetic overall, I also really liked some of the new musical arrangements and this version of 'Angry Dance' which I'll talk more about later.
It was a matinee which from our experiences I find that sometimes the audience are not as energetic or as excited or wanting
to get involved as much which sadly we did feel here a bit, but it didn’t really affect
the show too much, only really when Tony talks to the audience a bit or the
songs where you sort of automatically begin clapping along or often have a big
audience response at the end like ‘Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher’ or
‘Expressing Yourself’. However, the applause was always there at the right times and there was lots of it. We did have some annoying audience members around us (I am aiming to do a post on theatre etiquette as people on the Musical Theatre Appreciation Society FB and Twitter group I'm part of are discussing it a lot at the moment as there seem to be increasing problems!) mostly people with sweet wrappers, making noises with them all the way through. ATG seem to be increasing the amount of sweets they sell (they also do that order and it is bought to your seat service now) and are allowing more alcohol to be sold and bought into the auditorium which is a shame as it annoys people around them a lot. We managed to not get annoyed at them but it is irritating when you pay so much money to see a show and people can be so inconsiderate of others.
I’ll start with the cast as I know people like to know about
that. The young man who played Billy for us was Emile Gooding and as I
understand it was the newest Billy to the team, but you could not tell at all.
He was brilliant, our London Billy Ollie was great, but Emile was I felt just a
bit more of a polished performer. You could not fault his ‘Electricity’ which
was a ballet version, he was bang on with the music, he used facial expressions
and all of his moves were very clean. I checked this with my sister as she has
done high level ballet grades etc. and she said that his ballet was much
cleaner than lots of the other Billy’s we have watched online. Sometimes the
ballet Billy’s seem to struggle with the acro parts of the show, but again,
Emile was spot on. I know the Billys are cast based mostly on their dancing skills, but Emile
hit all of the notes and was a fine singer. His acting was good too, his comic
timing was the best I’ve seen but I think his forte was the emotional scenes,
he was brilliant with Grandma. Well Done Emile! In case you didn't spot him or didn't see it, he appeared on Little Big Shots UK, check him out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBZlEYBAPJU
Henry Farmer played Michael,
and again he was brilliant. He was easily on par with Zach who we saw in London
(who was Michael in the filmed version) and as required from Michael, his comic
timing was amazing. He made the song ‘Expressing Yourself’ with his facial
expressions alone never mind the boy’s tap dancing! Again, he had a good
singing voice too, but it felt like he is destined to be some kind of comedy
actor! We had Lily Cadwallender as our Debbie and her acting was spot on. She
played the part very much like we saw in London so along with the other ballet
girls were very funny. The young lady who played Susan Parks was particularly
good, if you’ve seen the show or listened to the soundtrack you know that along
with Tracy, Susan is one of the more prominent ballet girls and comic ones, but
the young lady that played her, her comic timing was spot on! My favourite bit
with the ballet girls is in ‘Shine’ when they are told to smile, I love it as
all girls look like they are having a great time pulling funny faces and I’ve
seen that kind of smile happen it real life a number of times watching my
younger sister’s shows!
Onto the adult cast, I know a few people have moaned about
how Dad is played, but again this is usually by people who went to see the
London production regularly and got used to it being played by Deka Walmsley because he
was there for so long. However, I felt that Martin Walsh who played Dad in
Manchester was just as good. I don’t know if they react differently to the end
of ‘Electricity’ every show or so as it was the same as what happens on the
DVD, however, when I saw it in London Dekka did something else and I’ve seen a
few other Dad’s online that react the same. I don’t know if they save that
reaction for so many shows or something so I won’t spoil it, but if you’ve seen
the show and it was different to what Dekka did on the DVD then you know what
I’m talking about and I do prefer that reaction compared to the one of him just
being in shock at the end which is on the DVD and what happened in Manchester.
Tony was played by Scott Garnham and again, I feel he played
the part well. I think I preferred the Tony we had in London, simply because he
showed was a bit better with the comic moments, especially when interacting
with the audience at the start of the 2
nd half, but it is difficult
to compare that bit really as they changed it a lot from the London production,
it was much shorter, none of the jokes directed at particular groups in the
audience, so he did well with the script he was given. I saw Scott years ago in Les Mis, so it was nice to see him again and his acting skills, especially in the emotional moments were excellent. Mrs Wilkinson was played
by Annette McLaughlin and was as good as the lady we saw in London and Ruthie
on the DVD. I liked her interaction with the ballet girls a lot so it made the
comedy scenes really fun to watch. The boxing coach and Mr Braithway were funny
as usual, but after seeing David as Mr Braithway, there was a lot to live up to
and personally I preferred David’s portrayal as he interacted with the audience
better, which may have been easier in London thinking about it as the audience
were quite far from the stage in Manchester compared to in London. Grandma was played
by Andrea Miller was as funny and moving as ever, I mean, I saw Ann Emery in London who has now sadly passed
away and she had played Grandma for so long it must be difficult for other
actresses to pick up the part, she is also on the Billy live DVD. Our Manchester was probably a better singer and
dancer, but Anne just had that perfect comic timing and connection with the
audience, it would be hard to beat. The ensemble were very good, very funny when needed and the power of their voices in the emotional songs was amazing, I love the beginning song when they sing 'all out til we've won', it really shows how communities stood together.
Onto some of the changes, little things were changed such as it was a mother rather than father for the 'posh' child at the Royal Ballet School audition, which didn't really make a difference and as mentioned above, the start of the 2nd act with Tony was slightly different with less jokes aimed at the audience. The audition scene was completely different and this is one scene where I preferred the London version as lots of comedic moments were lost such as when the tape is going wrong. I think it was shorter overall so it was probably to save time. The set was therefore different too for this bit, the other bit we noticed was during in 'Express' it was more like the US version and versions I've seen in other countries as they had a rainbow shiny background at one point, which was nice. Obviously they had to make some set changes due to it being on tour, so the opening set was different I think and they couldn't have the set appearing and disappearing out of the floor like the kitchen and Billy's bedroom. The biggest change was 'Angry Dance' and we really liked it. The music felt more upbeat some how and more powerful (the score appeared to have changed in other parts as well, but I liked it and nothing was too dramatically changed for it to have a massive impact). The choreography for 'Angry Dance' was the biggest change, for example, more of the start was performed in Billy's bedroom than on the stage floor and they used boards to create a big British Coal sign with images of the strike projected onto it, and an audio of Thatcher playing over the top of the music. I really liked this bit and it gave me goosebumps, as it made you think about how awful this situation was. It was basically the US version I think that I have seen clips of on youtube e.g. the one that was performed at the Tony Awards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7GcqFmFAE8 I like this version but the bit I missed was where Billy has ballet shoes tied together and swings them around his head, I don't know why I just like that part so it was a shame that was no longer in it! The two versions are pretty different so people will have different preferences but I felt the tour one was just a bit more powerful and moving.
All of the other dances were pretty much the same I think, very slick and choreographed brilliantly. As I mentioned we had a ballet Billy, but there was lots of acro skills in it which were brilliant to see live.
Regrading the sets, as I said they obviously couldn't do some things but it was mostly just the set coming out of the floor like the bedroom. Other than that it is quite a plain set which fits in with the mood and it does not need really fancy sets for it to work. I still like the staging of when the miners are supposed to be going underground which is helped with the sound affects and lighting. Speaking of them, both were very slick and as I remember we actually had no technical issues. Sorry to say I didn't pay much attention to the lighting in this one which is something I am hoping to pay attention to more in the future, alongside how sets work etc. as I re-watch shows I have seen before so can focus more on them rather than just the story or acting. The costumes were pretty much the same too and the make-up. The best part are the big dancing dresses as the rest of the musical does not really call for big fancy costumes. All looked authentic though and fit in well with the mood of the show, especially with Michael's standing out more than others. The props were spot on again too, all looking authentic and there were no issues. We noticed some of the props for the letter scene that Billy brings to his lesson were different which was an interesting change, one we are not sure why was done, but it didn't really cause any issues. Well done to the technical team and the orchestra who sounded amazing as always!
Overall we really enjoyed the show, I usually don't prefer the tour versions compared to the West End version but this was an exception. You could tell they had been able to make changes that they wanted to to make it a bit fresher but kept all of the key moments and perfected the dances which everybody wanted to see. It was Christmas time too which made it extra special and the Merry Christmas song worked perfectly! Hopefully we shall see Billy return to the UK in the near future and I am sure we will see lots of the young cast members in the future. If you are in or can get to Hamburg, go see it quick!
http://billyelliotthemusical.com/
