Went to see Billy Elliot yesterday. I was a bit paranoid about arriving late, since waiting for the Muni can take quite awhile (I guess especially on Sundays when you can expect to be standing around for half an hour or so. Lesson learnt and reinforced several times >_<), but I arrived safe and sound anyway.

What struck me was how many children there seemed to be in the audience. I assume it's because the cast for Billy Elliot has a lot of kids, so that would draw the kids in, although the show is not exactly aimed at kids, the plot about the miner's strike might be a bit too difficult to understand (I did hear a kid sitting behind me asking his mom what happened a few times) not to mention the liberal dusting of obscenities throughout the show, which is intended to be funny, but I'd understand a parent being queasy about their kid watching.Then again, it might still be a good opportunity to introduce kids to broadway. The other reason to explain the amount of kid audience is just a guess, but I suspect some of them might know the performers, since a lot of parents seem to know each other (or just being very talkative before the show?)

So how was the show? It was ok. Didn't quite hit the target, but that's probably just me having too high expectations. The thing is, I listen to the cds from the show, and I form some mental image of the show being perfect. But when you think about it, the cd would most likely sound better than a live performance since they can record a few times and edit it to perfection. And putting up Billy Elliot has a few technical dilemmas to overcome too, like the issue of the cast having to put on a northern British accent (when it's easy to spot a fake accent, and then it gets a little distracting)and also the accent is so thick, you could miss a few lines. Also, if you were expecting to see top notch dancing, you have to remember that most of the dancers in the script are supposed to be bad at dancing, except for the title character.

But there were several hits too. The choreography was interesting to watch; my favourite was Grandma's song (incidentally, my least favourite track on the cd). The humour felt a bit forced, but the touching scenes were pretty spot on (I suspect the kid sitting next to me started crying at one point, and there was an outburst of parents hugging their kids during the intermission)