BILLY ELLIOT

Billy Elliot, set in a mining village in County Durham, is a musical that contains various strong story lines conveyed with powerful acting and very strong musical verse rather than tuneful memorable songs. The main theme centres around the miners strike in 1984/5 and young Billy's desire to go to ballet classes rather than boxing lessons and support his father and brother on the picket lines. This show offers so much scope for some excellent acting and again Woodkirk came up with the goods in this direction with some brilliant casting in Aaron Shales (Billy) they found a real jewel, his acting singing and dancing was memorable by any standards finding just the right style for the many changing situations. Another eyecatching role was given by Aaron Cawood (Michael) his desire to dress in girls clothes with his gay tendancies was superbly acted bringing much comedy to the role. Latham Haigh (Billy's Dad) carried off the very demanding role, at first the very hard miner then changing to a softer mode to help Billy's dancing career. Angus Murray (Tony) Billy's older brother was every inch the frustrated hard bitten miner on the picket line who found it hard to come to terms with Billy's dancing aspirations. Sam Webster (George) was another eyecatching role with his very confident cocky, abrasive attitude to the rule of law. Holly Smith (Mrs. Wilkinson) the ballet mistress was most impressive in every song, dance and acting movements she gave, a brilliant performance. Lauren Taylor (Grandma) was a most excellent, very slovenly grandma mooching around the kitchen, eating old out of date food, giving a strong acting performance revealing her own very abusive relationships and her love of dancing. All the other lesser roles were portrayed to a very high standard and did much to enhance this most thought provoking production.

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