When the time for the regional audition comes around and Billy does not show up, Mrs. Wilkinson recognizes that Billy has enough talent that he should try to audition for the Royal Ballet School and she is willing to give him lessons for free. He dances for the first time and finds he likes it and begins going to ballet classes instead of boxing. Billy stays on to watch, but Wilkinson won’t have it and says he must join in if he’s going to stay. The class is all girls, whom Wilkinson charges 50p a lesson. Wilkinson (Blythe Wilson), who runs a ballet class. Eleven-year-old Billy Elliot, who lives with his brother Tony (Scott Beaudin), his widowed father Jackie (Dan Chameroy), both miners, and his slightly loony Grandmother (Marion Adler), stays on in the union hall where his boxing class was held to give the keys to Mrs. Amid the increasing tensions that arise as the government wears down the miners’ union and the fear that the whole region will lose its livelihood, one small spark of artistic talent arises in the bleakness.
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The action is set during the 1984-85 UK miners’ strike in County Durham at a time when the anti-union Margaret Thatcher was in power. Nevertheless the essential story remains the same. Unlike the creators of many musicals based on films, Daldry, who directed the original stage production, and book and lyrics writer Lee Hall realized that the film had to be completely reconceived to work on stage. The musical from 2005 which won both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for Best Musical, is based on the film from 2000 directed by Stephen Daldry. The starry cast has no weak link and Nolen Dubuc, who plays Billy is simply amazing. Donna Feore has outdone herself in directing and choreographing the show for a thrust stage. The musical itself is one of the greatest British musical not merely because it finds Elton John at his most daring and inventive but because, unlike so many musicals, it is peopled with complex, fully rounded characters who live in a specific, detailed historical period. It’s still early in the season but it is hard to imagine any musical surpassing Billy Elliot at the Stratford Festival as the must-see musical of the summer. Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford Music by Elton John, book & lyrics by Lee Hall, directed by Donna Feore