Billy Elliott

On his last night in Sydney I took Todd to see Billy Elliott the Musical. I saw the movie ages ago and have seen it many times since its release in 2000. It makes me cry every time I see it.

So I booked tickets. I booked ticked for the opening night as a gift for Todd’s birthday. When the tickets arrived, they weren’t for opening night and amazingly enough just so happened to be for the last night he was in town. Phew!

After a last supper of sushi and a couple of glasses of wine we made our way to the Capitol Theatre just in time for the last call of take your seats. We were in the dress circle, slightly to the left of the stage. Not bad seats. It was sold out.

The show started with a Pathe newsreel showing the mining industry in the 30’s during the ‘good’ times. The singing started early with the whole cast coming onto stage in 80s garb singing about keeping the community together and deciding to strike.

The sets were amazing. There was the generic room set that slid in from left and right, the ‘Elliott’ house set that spiralled up from a hole in the stage with a bed on top of a set of stairs with a little kitchen at the bottom. The toilet block at the gym pulled out of the side of the room set. All very clever and beautifully put together.

The stage version ran along the same lines at the movie and included a few of the more memorable lines, such as;

Mrs. Wilkinson: This'll sound strange, Billy, but for some time now I've been thinkin' of the Royal Ballet School.
Billy: Aren't you a bit old, miss?

And

Debbie : don’t you fancy us, Billy?
Billy : Nah!
Debbie : I’ll show us me fanny.
Billy : Nah, you’re alright.

The musical was directed by the same guy who directed the movie Stephen Daldry, the lyrics by Lee Hall (he wrote the script for the movie) and the music was written Elton John. It was surprising that none of the songs had a hook, but then they are used to writing spoken word, not sung. Neither Todd nor I left humming, thinking we’d have that tune stuck in our head for a while. Shame really because from what I can remember the songs were pretty good.

The dancing however was completely memorable. I was concerned about the thought of watching a precocious little bugger on the stage for several hours, but I was completely entranced. I’m not sure which of the four Billy’s was playing on Tuesday night, but he was amazing. There was a scene (the bit in the movie where his Dad finds him dancing in the gym with Michael) where he was dancing Swan Lake with his older self. There was dry ice, wire work and ballet. It made me cry. I forgot how much I like ballet. The kid and the guy floated around the stage for maybe four or five minutes, it was beautiful.

Anyway, despite the un-catchiness of the songs I would say go see it, the dancing is amazing, but watch the movie first.

PS. Todd has arrived In Washington ;-)

A Birthday Boys Adventure

Yesterday it was Todd’s birthday. He was five years off being 39 and his birthday treat was a trip to the theatre. More precisely it was a Darren Hayes concert.

The evening started with drinks in Roof Bar. I gave him his pressie (he loved the two books I had wrapped for him) while we drank champagne with strawberries. Dinner followed after we descended the single floor to Sky Phoenix Chinese restaurant. Rachel and Eve joined us for dinner and we feasted on chicken and sweetcorn soup, Peking duck, prawn sesame toasts, pork dim sims, Singapore style king prawns, Mongolian lamb, shredded beef and mixed veggies. We also polished off a couple of bottles unwooded chardonnay.

With only minutes to spare before the 8pm start we dashed the half block to the State theatre. The support band came on about three minutes after we had sat down. If you want the review, read the next entry, I’m reviewing our night here, not the bands. Anyway, we didn’t really want to see the support band so we all went out into the foyer and had another sparkling tipple or two. Just before Darren was due on, Eve and I convinced Todd that a true groupie/stalking would throw their pants onstage, so a quick trip to the Gents saw Todd pantless, but it fell to Eve and I to write his name and phone number on them with foundation. When the foundation hadn’t dried nearly thirty minutes later, I blotted it with my shirt…god I hope it comes out. Well, he couldn’t scrunch them up and throw them at Darren if they were all smudgy.

The concert was great. Lasers, moveable set and back up singers. The works!

Afterwards I collected a little of the paper that fell from the rafters as part of the finale, then Todd announced he was going backstage. We all looked at him in disbelief as he got up and walked towards the door marked ‘Authorised Personnel Only’, we quickly followed. He walked straight through; we said ‘we’re with him,’ and got through too. That’s where we stopped, but he just kept on going, bold as brass, past the wall of black transport cases before disappearing around the corner and out of sight.

The three of us stood like lemons in the corridor for about ten minutes before Eve said she had to go home and left, leaving Rachel and I standing there. Rachel had a mini breakdown at this point and started crying about how much she missed Todd and didn’t want him to leave etc. I consoled her until a guy asked,’Are you with the party?’

I wasn’t quick enough and said, ‘Nope, we’re waiting for a friend.’ D’oh! I must learn to fib quicker.

Having not heard from Todd after about fifteen minutes, Rachel and I decided to leave too. When we reached the top of the stairs, I looked at my mobile to see that I had missed three calls from Todd. At that point Rachel picked up a call from him saying ‘I’m in his room!’ before the call dropped.

We got back inside to be met by a rather giddy and very excited Todd. ‘I got kicked out!’ he shouted at us, but he was so happy about it. “I was one drink away from serving Darren Hayes!’

Further investigation (when he’d calmed down a bit) revealed that having got to DH room there was about 70 people in the room, but the bar was unmanned. So, being the resourceful old bastard that he is, he played bar tender. He served a lady who didn’t drink Merlot and spent ten minutes talking to Darren’s parents (his dad took two beers). He got rumbled just as Darren was about to be served.

When I asked why Darren was queuing for a drink at his own concert Todd replied,
‘Well, he’s not Madonna is he.’

Not so Happy Joy Joy

On Friday night, Edna and I went to the State Theatre to see Dead Man Walking. An opera based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean that has also been a movie with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

After trying to get rid of the spare tickets we had (two people committed to go but then pulled out without reimbursing Edna), we made our way into the theatre and managed to get ourselves seats in the front row of the dress circle. Sweet.

The opening scene was two youngsters canoodling on the stage in the buff, then being raped and murdered. It was harrowing, but then I suppose that’s was the point. The opera is about a murderer on death row and the nun that becomes attached to him and the parents of his victims. It ended as it started with the death, by lethal injection, of Joseph De Rocher, the murderer.

The whole thing was very well done, with the stage having three floors and the orchestra sitting on the floors in blue prison jump suits. There were film flashes of real events and real pictures. Edna was particularly impressed when Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Joseph De Rocher) managed twenty press-ups while singing. I was impressed by his abs.

Anyway, the whole was very good, but made for a less than happy joy joy evening. I went home a cried.

Star Wars on Ice

I have been a fan of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of War of the Worlds since my Mum brought the LP (that’s the big round black vinyl things, before tapes and way before CDs) back in the late 70s. I was just a wee nipper and parts of the soundtrack sent me hiding behind the sofa, but I loved it. I was devested when the voice, Richard Burton passed away in 1984 and listened to the album as he was buried in Switzerland.

Now image my excitement when I heard that the team behind the album had decided to take it all on the road. I drove into the car park at the Acer Arena with my friend Todd sat next to me, the complete War of the World virgin. He was laughing so hard when I told him I didn’t want to miss the opening and then did my best Richard Burton impression. He kept asking me about it and I had difficulty explaining it as anything other than a rock opera based on the HG Wells book. ‘Ohh my god…you’ve taken me to Star Wars on ice’.

The sell out crowd gathered and waved at the camera projecting shots into the eyes of the Tripod on the screen. I knew it was a Tripod, but those that didn’t looked confused. The lights went down and a hush descended with them. The stage had a string section sat on the right and a full on rock band on the left, behind them was a huge landscape screen. I was expecting the sound of the Narrator (Richard Burton) to open with famous first line but instead we got a three minute screen presentation of the Martians discussing taking out earth. It was not what I had been expecting, but then, I wasn’t really sure what I had expected, so went with the flow.

There was a brief pause before the stage went dark and a hologram projection of Richard Burton appeared and then, ‘No-one would have believed…’ you could have heard a pin drop. It was amazing. From that moment on the entire audience was hooked and held captive. There were a few deviations for the original soundtrack, but these only added, like the harp, it didn’t appear in the original but it sound blended perfectly to highlight a few key areas. The overriding bass was key to the arrival of the Martians and a clue to the sound of many bands playing around Sydney.

- Richards Hologram (on the left)

Justin Haywood and Chris Thompson appeared in their original roles as the sung thought of the narrator for ‘Forever Autumn’ and the voice of humanity for ‘Thunder Child’ while a Aussie cast gave voice to the rest of the characters. Micheal Falzon did a reasonable job as the Artilleryman, Rachael Beck past muster at Beth, the Parson wife. Surprisingly though was the Parson himself, played by the gravel voiced Phil Lynott (who past away in 1986) all those years ago, was being channelled by Shannon Noll. Todd reckons he always sound like that, but no.

The art work throughout on the screen was mixture of new digitally produce stuff that moved and the original artwork produced by Peter Goodfellow, but by far and away the most impressive was the enormous fighting machine that came from the high rigging and stood centre stage with menacing eyes and red laser heat rays.

- The Tripod

All it all it was excellent and I was anything but disappointed. Todd came away keen to hear the original and I even managed to get my boobs signed by the Artilleryman, he’s no David Essex, but he’ll do ;-)