Boys in the 'hood; The three young stars of Billy Elliot, writes Hamish Bowles, are lighting up the London stage.(Theater Review)

Byline: Hamish Bowles

Stephen Daldry's 2000 coming-of-age film Billy Elliot charted one boy's struggle with the boxing lessons and drunken belligerence of dour, North of England, working-class manhood over his desire to express himself through ballet. Now, with a trio of rotating young stars, Billy Elliot is rocking the London stage as a musical. The story is set against the grim backdrop of the evisceration of a small community during the 1984 coal miners' strike, which pitted the unions against prime minister Margaret Thatcher's intransigent government. It was Elton John's initiative to turn the movie into a musical, and his eclectic score references glam rock, let's-put-on-a-show razzle-dazzle, and workingmen's anthems, as well as the Sunday-school hymns that were the first things he ever played on the piano.

The production unites some core members of the original movie team: while Daldry directs, the tear-jerking book and the lyrics-both written in thick local vernacular and laced with salty anglo-saxonisms-are the work of the original screenwriter, Lee Hall, who admits to a passion for the "melodramatic." Choreographer Peter Darling's work here soars to new heights of invention, wit, and giddy exhilaration, notably in a breathtaking set piece that somehow unites fiercely battling miners, policemen, and the improbable fledgling ballerinas of Mrs. Wilkinson's class, where Billy experiences his dance epiphany.

Ian MacNeil's set and Nicky Gillibrand's costumes cleverly skewer the grim realities of life on a miner's salary-a world of meat pasties and archaic gas cookers, of Crimplene frocks and leatherette bomber jackets. But it is the three boys sharing the title role who bring the production dazzlingly to life.

"The show is driven by the child," notes Daldry, "so we were looking for an indescribable sense of charisma." Selected from the 3,000 boys initially auditioned around Britain-"must be able to dance, sing, and act brilliantly," ran the ad-James Lomas, George Maguire, and Liam Mower indubitably fit the bill. In many ways, their lives offer parallels with the fictional character they personify with such captivating charm. As Darling observes, "Each child had his personal struggle: Liam had never, ever sung; George had barely danced a step; and ...