Button-it, Billy
Friday, April 25th, 2008I read in the Daily Mail, in Baz Bamigboye’s Friday showbiz pages - filed from New York - that Stephen Daldry has vowed that he won’t tame the language in Billy Elliot - the Musical when the show opens on Broadway in October. Producers apparently asked him whether he could get rid of the swearing but he responds: ‘My answer is to do the opposite… That rawness is a vital part of what makes the piece work.’ You can read the full piece here, but I’d beg to differ. The night I caught Billy Elliot, way back, I was astonished at how many rich-looking adults there were in the audience, and how few children. As I watched the show, I began to understand why: there’s far too much swearing for what is actually, at heart, a family show. And more to the point, it’s the sort of swearing that draws attention to the would-be grittiness of the staging rather than arising from any transparent need for naturalism. In short, it feels gratuitous. And if I wanted to take a kid along to see the show, I’d hang back until he/or she was old enough a) to be thoroughly acquainted with expletives at school and b) able to understand the inclusion of ‘bad language’ on artistic grounds. Which kinda excludes those reasonably young children - six, seven, eight years old - who could potentially be inspired by the show to get into ballet and dancing - at just the age when training could make a life-changing difference. The swearing is self-defeating, Steve - believe me; and Billy Elliot in New York would be a much stronger proposition without it.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’m sorry Dominic but I have to disagree. I have been to see the show a few times, 20 in fact, and there has always been plenty of children there. The Thursday matinee is always packed with school parties of all ages. The last time I went a few weeks ago there were about 60 youngsters from the USA there. I overheard some of them talking at the interval and they were in raptures about the show.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Disagree!! Obviously the author of this article mistakes “Billy Elliot The Musical” as a children’s fairy tale like „Cinderella“ or „Alice in Wonderland“ or a Christmas pantomime dance show for very small kids. It is not! It is a masterpiece of modern music theatre, a real- life-family-story with much historical and social background - and, like in the movie before, the language is the proper flavour and very adequate for a worn out British miners’ community in the 1980ies. Though I would recommend not bringing children of a too young age, not just because of the “bad language”, but they wouldn’t get the story at all. But the many youngsters I have seen among the London audience from 11 / 12 on - and teens of course - obviously did know all those “bad words” in question since long (whether their parents liked that or not) and laughed wholeheartedly - without using them themselves at home obviously. Just as one of the London Billy actors took it: “It is a great show that people do come and see. Because it’s not just a show for adults, or just for children, or just for people who like theatre, I’d say for everyone, and it’s got so much emotion behind it. Because who ever comes and sees it, feels the story - so I think: it’s brilliant!”
April 26th, 2008 at 3:01 am
I also disagree. I have seen Billy Elliot in London many times, and I often sat next to, or near families with Children who looked to be 7 or 8. The mothers I discussed the bad language with just shrugged it off, saying the kids hear that language from other children in school. And the young kids? They thoroughly enjoyed the show! Two of the boys who played Billy commented on a British interview show that young boys of 8 or so sometimes came up to them at the stage door after a performance to proudly say they had gotten their dancing shoes. So the language obviously did not put those children off.