Jamie Bell's views on BETM

[Billy Whiz]

Jamie Bell discusses the musical in the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1JL8FJ.DTL

[Brad]

That was a good read - thanks for posting it. Jamie seems in awe of the stage Billys and rightly so

[angelenroute]

Someone had asked me whether there was any official position of the musical's directors as to whether cast members should watch the movie. I assumed there isn't except that perhaps a dialogue coach in North America might recommend it.

Thanks for the article share, BW! I loved reading Jamie's new comments on the show! And shimmyshimmy, that's a good question. I've gotten the impression that cast members either have seen or haven't seen the movie, at least prior to starting in the role, and many don't even know what the other productions do differently. It makes sense in that there's no reason to distract yourself from learning and perfecting your role, although I would think it'd be fun once you're very comfortable in the role. For instance Thommie Retter didn't do that baskets of pansies bit when the show started on Broadway but eventually started doing it. One wonders if the London powers that be didn't feel it was needed as part of the instruction or if it only came about from the London actor and they didn't want to push one person's bits? Another example is Philip Whitchurch who played Dad in London and then for a run on Broadway. When the packing of Billy's suitcase scene is on, he does a bit where he folds a shirt for Billy, to show him what to do, and then crumples it up quick to Billy's (and the audience's) delight. Greg didn't take that on when he came back from his leave, but Joel Hatch has added it to his performance as Dad (Joel would have seen Philip do it, Greg would not have). I imagine a lot of this, then, is just on the fly, ways of tweaking your role without the director telling them what exactly to do.

In fact, I bet if there was a private run-through (like they do with new cast members) or if there was a Billy class taught with video from the show, for both superfans and cast members, A LOT could be learned about A LOT of the show that the actors themselves don't know. That isn't to sound presumptuous, it's just that from experience, I've learned so many of the actors have so much to do in their own role that they don't have the time outside of their 8 shows a week to pick up nuances of other roles.

Sorry, one more example haha. Just remembered this: When Jackie Elliot crosses the picket line to go back to work, one of the other names called out in the role call is Atkinson. Until Thommie Retter told me, I had no idea he played that role too, but now I always hear his voice and notice him. But Thommie mentioned something funny I never thought of. If he's Atkinson, shouldn't he be standing with Tracy Atkinson in public scenes or be the one who says, "Sing out, Tracy!"? I guess the decision was made that he'd play this particular "Scab" role but if he was Atkinson's dad all the time, people would notice it was actually Mr. Braithwaite, which would be confusing. Anyway, just fun stuff I love thinking about and hearing about and thought I'd share.

Annnnnnnd because I've come so far off topic (although an argument can be made that a Forum section about the movie's star talking about the musical lends license to other cross-topic discussion), I will end by saying again how cool it was to read Jamie's thoughts. Billy's story has indeed taken different form, but it is the same beautiful story and Jamie is still and will always be Billy Elliot!

Sean