London critics are used to being part of the event of a first night, but it creates an unusual tension: we’re there to work and to judge, and the rest of the usually invited audience of friends and investors are there to cheerlead and hopefully celebrate. On Broadway, however, they typically remove that element of tension by getting the critics out of the way ahead of the official opening night; they are invited to the final previews instead, so by the time the actual opening night arrives, it’s mainly a press photo-op event, and the reviews - for good or ill - are already in the bag, awaiting publication later in the evening.
So last night it was highly unusual to be in the midst of the unwrapping of a major Broadway hit, there to both review but also to celebrate a show I already knew and loved, in the shape of Billy Elliot.
Though the British press contingent was actually extremely modest - only two critics, Charlie Spencer and myself, and two arts reporters, the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye and the Evening Standard’s Louise Jury, were in attendance - we seem to be genuinely welcomed. Convening for drinks at the theatrical eaterie/drinking hole Angus McIndoe at 5.15pm, we were joined by director Stephen Daldry - and then went across the street to the theatre with him for the show itself.
I’d already run into him two nights earlier on West 45th Street, just outside the Imperial Theatre where Billy Elliot is playing, after I came out of All My Sons across the street which had already finished, but he was going in to watch the Act I finale. In fact, that turned out to the all-important major critics’ night - or at least the night that the New York Times was watching the show. And he admitted last night that, even though the show has been an established success in London, he was still nervous for it: he even threw up with anxiety the night before.
But last night he was already relaxed: in fact he’d already seen advance sight of the major reviews going in, so knew there was nothing to worry about - and in fact, there would be plenty to celebrate. He and his creative team have always been remarkably hands-on with this show; there have been 28 Billy’s so far (between London, Australia and now New York), plus Jamie Bell in the film, and he has directed every single one.
In fact, the Australian production is about to be transplanted from Sydney to Melbourne, and the rest of the creative team travel there today, where Daldry will join them later in the week after completing the final edit on his next film, The Reader, around which there has already been some controversy with its two living co-producers Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin reportedly falling out over the release schedule, when Daldry asked for more editing time. (Two of its other producers, Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, have died since the film was shot).
It turned out that Harvey Weinstein was sat directly behind me in the theatre (and amidst all the star spotting, I also had Rosie O’Donnell across the aisle and New York Mayor Bloomberg just along my row, while Charlie Spencer was sat directly next to fellow pop fan Sir Tim Rice a couple of rows in front of me). Charlie was also introduced to Elton John on the way in, who told him, “I never thought this would make it to Broadway.” When Charlie replied that he’s now got two of the biggest shows in town, with it and The Lion King, Elton pointed out, “I think Jersey Boys and Wicked are doing pretty well.”
I meanwhile ran into book writer and lyricist Lee Hall, with whom I shared my admiration for his play The Pitman Painters that is probably my play of the year; and he said, “Yes, I know”. It’s good to meet a writer who knows what his reviews were like - and who wrote them! If British critics, however, were not exactly out in force last night, at least the house was full of British theatre people - I ran into them everywhere, from Sally Greene, one of the show’s co-producers under the banner of Old Vic Productions, to Stephen Walley-Cohen (owner of the Victoria Palace, Billy’s London home), Nica Burns of Nimax Theatres and Caro Newling (co-producer of Shrek on Broadway, under the banner of Neal Street Productions).
My own guest for the night was my friend Philip, for whom the show has a special resonance since it is set in Easington, roughly five miles from where he was born and brought up in Sunderland, and he has already seen the show nine or ten times in London. So it was a particular pleasure to share it with him.
If Philip has come a long way from there (he now works for the BBC Trust), the show has travelled a long distance, too, and done so without compromising its specificity or heart-warming integrity. And the same applies to Daldry himself, who I can still vividly remember actually tearing the tickets and seating people during his tenure as artistic director of the Gate Theatre, where I first encountered him during the early 90s. I have followed his career avidly ever since, of course; and though he is now an internationally acclaimed theatre and film director, he’s still the same brilliant and charming man.
And then, after a brief detour to the opening night party, I came back to the apartment to eagerly soak up the first night reviews - and they’re raves, from the New York Times to Associated Press and Variety; David Rooney, Variety’s chief theatre critic, must be relieved to have liked the show, since when Matt Wolf had reviewed its London premiere unfavourably, his editor-in-chief Peter Bart wrote a strongly worded editorial denouncing his review - and subsequently saw him replaced as the London theatre critic on the paper, as I reported here in January 2006.
And to prove even with the biggest of hits there is usually one critic completely out of step with the rest of humanity:
Headline - "Karl Marx in a Tutu"
I've seen my share of bad Broadway musicals, but I can't recall one that was quite so vulgar and bogus as "Billy Elliot."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122661564681526123.html