November 2010 Reviews - NYC

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Billy Whiz
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November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by Billy Whiz »

A place for November's reviews.
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AJ HOLDEN
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by AJ HOLDEN »

Billy: Joseph Harrington x2, Jacob Clemente x2,

Michael: Neil McCaffrey x 1 and Jake Evan Schwencke x 3.

Small Boy: Seth x2 and Alex x2.

All other cast as per normal.

This review is late owing to having no access to the Forum for over 2 weeks. So apologies it is so late and my spell chacker isn’t wokring either. And also apologies for combining 4 shows into one review.

Unfortunately I should have done my home work but my laptop crashed 3 days before leaving for New York and thus I couldn’t read up on the New York show as planned. That was a shame because I arrived at the Imperial just seconds after the start to the Sunday 24th Oct matinee to pick up the tickets for the evening show. The name on the Billy on the board was Joseph Harrington. Who!! It is and always will be to my eternal shame that I was totally oblivious to Joe’s debut. But no matter because over the next week I was treated to 4 simply outstanding shows including Joes’ second and third shows. I felt Joe acted like a veteran who’d played the part all his life. Very confident, yes, some understandable early nerves but by Shine I was captivated and felt totally at home. I could hardly detect an American accent, a very creditable Geordie with just the very odd slip. Beautiful choreography of course. Witnessed my first ever Billy jumps off the piano and on both occasions the landings looked very awkward, I reckon the jump is as dangerous as the somersaults.

Jacob was my only other Billy. I found his ballet as good as any Billy I have seen in London and I particularly found his Dream Ballet sequence among some of the best dancing I have witnessed. As with Joe the acting was just brilliant, great accent, loved some of the facial expressions and total rapport with all the other actors, particularly Michael and Dad. Both Jacob and Joe had excellent singing voices. Both superb in the Letter scene too and I loved Joe’s Vulcan V sign when he pulled out the Star Trek annual.

It was no satisfaction to see that the American Billy’s skip as badly in Boogie as the London ones, not once in the four shows did we get even close to a decent bit of skipping. At least Genevieve Lemon skips, Emily Skinner just swings the rope around her head a bit like a lasso. Of course 90% of the show is the same as London’s. It is hard even to detect differences to the drab sets. I know some of us London show fans hate changes and I am among the most vocal in criticising changes to the London show when we argue about changing something we know and love and basically fixing something that isn’t broken. Boogie is the obvious starting point here. But I must admit Express in NY is infinitely better. The dancing is on a par, but the far brighter and colourful set once the tap dancing starts is vastly superior. The audience gasped then clapped when the lights came on. A change like that in the London show I believe would be very popular. You can forget those ridiculous dancing trousers that come on with the giant dresses but at least the US version drops the awful “a flat minor” joke. It’s just a shame that having dropped the joke there is still no room to add little gems like the mostly lost and forgotten lines such as the reference to smoking a fag.

This is a good time to say how much I admired and enjoyed Jake’s and Neil’s portrayals as Michael. Jake was particularly good in the start to Express, his facial expressions, timing and antics such as when he suggests a look in the mirror are as good as any Michael I have seen and made the scene even more enjoyable. Both criminally rushed the nutcracker line though.

Having seen the NY show and liking many of the differences, I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite to start making suggestions that London should make more changes, particularly when I posted above about not fixing what isn’t broken. I would be happy for the NY and London shows to keep their own versions of the panto and audition scenes for example. The reason is both versions work equally well. Both versions have pro’s and cons. But, I do think NY scores some bonus points in their version of “He Could be a Star”. I simply hate the London version. The NY version with the moving fences through to Billy trying to break up the family fight and on to the small boy putting all the coins into the miners hat is better. It flows better and more chance to experience some of the powerful emotions. It’s also a tad shorter! With some vast cast changes coming to the London show shortly, I wouldn’t want to see many changes, but I hope this scene is an exception.

I absolutely loved the Bally girls and Debbie. I was absolutely staggered to find out there is only one Debbie and one set of Ballet girls (with three subs). Along with only two Michael’s I can’t quite get my head around just how hard these kids must work, with so many shows a week and hardly able to take a day off with so few substitutes. I did like the smallest ballet girl, she was smaller than small boy, she looked so cute. Georgi James as Debbie is a mirror image of Fran and Fleur in London with similar acting skills and nuances, all off which I liked. One issue is some of the pauses are just too long, most notably after Billy tells her his mother is dead before she finally says “see you then”. To me it appears as though she has forgotten a line, improvises and then and runs off.

The small boys are great. Again only two of them so hard work and so many late nights! I do miss the fun of dropping the curtain on the small boys head at the start. Of course the boxing scene wouldn’t be the same without them and I didn’t realise they said “fat bast***”, or fat barstooooood as Alex says it. Very funny. I was struck at how similar Alex and Seth looked and couldn’t help snigger when Greg couldn’t work out which one he had on his shoulder when asking for the donations at the end of one show. Naturally he got it wrong to Alex’s disgust. Or was it Seth? On that note it was nice to contribute to worthy causes at the end of the show, one being 10% of money raised to arts projects in Easington which earned a generous round of applause. I was sorry that they didn’t offer a tour of the back stage after the show while others did, for example Mary Poppins offered a backstage tour by stars of the show for $150.

The adult leads were all simply superb. Greg in particular had an excellent rapport with the Billy’s and his front of stage audition scene is simply comic genius with white tights man. I loved Carole Shelley’s gran with many funny mannerisms. Will Chase was fine, he could work on the timing a bit when delivering his longer speeches but he did deliver for the emotional scenes. Emily Skinner was great. I truly think this is the toughest character to play and while it can be played so differently, I think that Emily set the right tone in many scenes, particularly the farewell. I just think she could have played a bit lighter by toning down a bit of early aggression and added a touch more humour. But ALL the adult cast were great.

I always love to talk to the audience before and after the show. I sat next to a whole variety in my four shows including a couple from Leeds UK who couldn’t stop laughing at some of the accents. I confess one of the ensemble sounds South African and there was a definite Jamaican at times too as well as the oft mentioned Welsh and Irish. A lovely family from Idaho had never heard of Billy Elliot (film or musical) and had just decided on the show by seeing how many 5 star ratings it had on the posters. They loved every bit of it. In two of my shows I believe I was sitting next to “celebs”. I had to fend off loads of American’s coming into my space and talking to Shaun or Sean Hayes (I had to ask someone his name). Sorry Shaun/Sean I still haven’t got a scoobies who you are. My next show people practically climbed over me to talk to a retired comedian – sorry I have forgotten his name.

Ben Cook as tall boy/posh boy was also excellent. Probably the best English accent on the stage. I think it was as a result of his accent that several members of the audience asked me, on hearing my accent, if the kids were English. They were genuinely surprised at the answer.

It was brilliant to meet the cast after the show. I think among London forum fans it is a heartbreak not to be able to tell the cast (and let’s be honest I mean the kids) just how wonderful they are, get a photo or autograph. There is no point in going into why this happens, we know the reasons and I believe the fans respect the management and we keep our distance in London. In New York it was great to speak to the kids, have countless photo’s taken and get autographs. I mentioned to a few of the kids about the Forum and without mentioning names I don’t think some knew what I was talking about. So come on NY forum, start plugging the forum to the cast on your visits to the stage door. One of the kids didn’t even know what a pastie was, so god know’s what concoction is on the plate at the start of the breakfast scene.

Finally I adored the Imperial. I loved the fact there is no restricted views, even in the front row (although I dread to think what the ticket prices are for Row B – for I took a second mortgage out for my tickets in row D)! I thought the orchestra were better (to my untrained ear are there simply more musicians and/or instruments in NY)? I loved the American audience and their enthusiasm and I loved New York. What a contrast to my last visit here 20 years ago. It has now become my favourite destination and I know it won’t be long before I return. I might buy a small pent house I saw just by Central Park... only kidding, I’ll rent it instead.

Regards

Alex
Uxbridge, London



Brad x1, Tom x1, Fox x2.5, Ollie x6.5, Aaron x4.5, Rhys x5.5, Dean x7.5, Scott x1.5, Jacob x2, Joe x2.
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xpress
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by xpress »

Thank you for the thorough review! :D These are just so enjoyable to read.
AJ HOLDEN wrote: It was no satisfaction to see that the American Billy’s skip as badly in Boogie as the London ones, not once in the four shows did we get even close to a decent bit of skipping.
When I saw the show with Kate Hennig, the skipping was a tad bit awkward, but not really bad.
"I know that he's looking out for me and I know he's in heaven. I thought about him right before I performed for the very first time on October 6th and I know he had the best seat in the house." -Alex Ko
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chocchipcookie26
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by chocchipcookie26 »

Fantastic review :D Agree with many points :)
Alex Ko's skipping was fantastic!
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porschesrule
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by porschesrule »

AJ HOLDEN wrote:This review is late owing to having no access to the Forum for over 2 weeks. So apologies it is so late and my spell chacker isn’t wokring either. And also apologies for combining 4 shows into one review.
Alex, thanks for persevering to get your combined review written. It would have been a shame if you had given up with all the adversity you had to get it posted.

I loved reading it, loved the comparisons of the two Billys you saw, but wished you'd seen one of the two more experienced Billys (Alex or Dayton) as Jacob and Joseph are the two newest Billys on Broadway and, while by all accounts they are very talented, we know that Billys tend to grow into the role the more experience they have.

I've also made it no secret that I love reading about comparisons between productions, so I thoroughly enjoyed your observations between the Broadway and London shows.

Thanks for your wonderful review. I'm so glad you finally got it posted as it was well worth waiting for!
Gburr
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by Gburr »

AJ HOLDEN wrote:I thought the orchestra were better (to my untrained ear are there simply more musicians and/or instruments in NY)?
There are more instruments in NY because of union rules. Shows that play at the Imperial Theatre must have 18 musicians according to union contract. So while London has 9 musicians New York has 18. There are also more instruments. This made a little bit of a stir when the show went to Chicago because the producers wanted to take the Orchestra back down to 9, but once again Union rules stood in the way. The union rules for Broadway in Chicago called for the same number of musicians as the original Broadway show. They ended up compromising with 14 musicians.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... ayers.html
Todd
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Re: November 2010 Reviews - NYC

Post by Todd »

AJ HOLDEN wrote: at least the US version drops the awful “a flat minor” joke. It’s just a shame that having dropped the joke there is still no room to add little gems like the mostly lost and forgotten lines such as the reference to smoking a fag.
Reading this section here, it was the first time I realized that Billy and Michael don't exchange jokes during their "Express" dance like they do in London. Guess that would indicate that I didn't miss the jokes being left out of the U.S. versions. I never have been able to hear them very well over the tapping and the music anyway. I've also never heard them get any laughs from the audience in the London shows I've attended since I don't think many other people can hear/understand the jokes either.
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