BILLY’S THE BEST
IT’S got heart, passion, killer choreography – and the best Elton John score ever. When all is said and sung, “Billy Elliot: The Musical” promises to be the biggest London import since Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh started minting money with “Cats.” The show tracks closely to “Billy Elliot,” the 2000 film (rated R, for its repeated use of the word “focking”), and has retained the same writer, director and choreographer. Here, as in London – where the show opened three years ago – three boys will alternate as Billy, the motherless son of an out-of-work coal miner who ditches his boxing gloves for ballet shoes and learns to soar.
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The reviews from Britain and Australia have been ecstatic, and those who’ve seen it abroad are eager to see it jeté into
the Imperial – which recently dug out its basement to house the set. Previews start Oct. 1 for a Nov. 13 opening.
“Billy Elliot” isn’t the only movie to hit the boards this fall. Watch for “White Christmas,” Irving Berlin’s let’s-put-on-a-show tale, which tap dances into the Marquis on Nov. 14, just behind “Shrek: The Musical” (Nov. 8, Broadway). Word from Seattle, where the show premiered, “ogres” well.
