Review: Auckland's glitzy Waterfront Theatre opens with cloth-cap musical 'Billy Elliot'

Billy Elliot the Musical
Music by Elton John; lyrics by Lee Hall
Waterfront Theatre, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland
Until November 6

The choice of an opening show for Auckland Theatre Company’s glitzy new playhouse in the harbourside Wynyard Quarter was always going to be difficult.

Should it be a highbrow drama with which the company made its reputation – or a crowd-pleaser to show off the $36 million premises to as many as ratepayers possible?

Artistic director Colin McColl chose the latter course and it may indeed play to full houses over the next few weeks. It will need to, as the theatre has a large 660-seat auditorium on two and a half levels that spares nothing for audience comfort.

The gala opening night was full of donors and corporate guests. But, instead of a proven West End or Broadway success, they experienced cloth-cap agit-prop of the old school, with many characters of an age that would be better suited to an end-of-year college production.

This is not to denigrate Mr McColl’s skills or the new theatre’s impressive technology, both on and off stage. But Billy Elliot is light fare and depends on its reputation on a feel-good film.

The story celebrates one boy’s rise to dancing fame against the background of the British coalminers’ strikes in the early 1980s.

These workers and their tactics were on the losing side of history, though you wouldn’t know it from Billy Elliot. Its relevance to a 21^st century Kiwi audience is remote, except if you prefer a pre-Rogernomics Labour government to be running a Venezuelan-style economy rather than John Key.

More in keeping with modern thinking, though, is the underlying “progressive” theme of overcoming blue-collar attitudes to males attracted to the world of ballet rather than more thuggish pursuits.

The ATC isn’t afraid of taunting its sponsors and the middle classes who faithfully attend every season. Sometimes that pays off, as the cabaret-style life of Rupert Murdoch demonstrated.

Even admirers of Murdoch, as I am, enjoyed David Williamson's Rupert despite the distinctly superior attitude of socialists toward anyone who has succeeded in business by catering to more mainstream tastes.

Next year’s ATC season has nothing of what I would call blockbusters, though these might be provided by more commercially oriented visiting shows that now have a more suitable venue than the cramped Civic.

Billy Elliot will be followed by three works by local playwrights, while those seeking more international entertainment will be satisfied by Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus and Jessica Swale’s Nell Gwyn, both of which have established pedigrees.