Brilliant Billy Elliot!
Last term, some fortunate children from Stoke Park School in Lockleaze took up the chance to visit the Hippodrome to watch the outstanding musical of Billy Elliot.
This inspired story is about a boy, Billy Elliot, who fought all the odds to follow his dream of becoming a ballet dancer. With self-belief, bravery and the support of other people he managed to succeed.
The interior of the theatre was adorned with royal red carpets and walls; our school was amazed by the posh and fancy rooms. It had a restaurant and a bar which we weren’t allowed in! From the upper circle, we were privileged with such an impressive view.
The dazzling stage sparkled in anticipation. When the performance began it went completely dark. And then, the red velvet curtains opened…
There was so much that took our breath-away! There were outstanding dances, dazzling scenes and astonishing actors. One of our favourite scenes was when Billy and Michael were dressing up as girls: it was hysterical! Another one we all enjoyed was where Billy danced to the incredible song ‘Electricity’, because it was a very passionate dance and there were mind-blowing tricks in it such as startling backflips and beautiful pirouettes.
We were extremely lucky to have exclusive backstage passes where we got to see some of the funky and colourful costumes as well as the props. We discovered some backstage secrets along with meeting some of the talented actors. Whilst we were backstage we met several actors including Billy Elliot’s father, his ballet teacher and grandma.
We asked the actors many questions to discover what life is like in their line of work. Did you know that the child actors still have to go to school as well as rehearsing and performing? That sounds like a lot of hard work! And to mark our memorable experience we had our photo taken in first position.
The students who saw the show go to drama classes at Stoke Park Schools with a delightful lady and teacher called Miss Cook. We’re really passionate and lucky to have exciting drama lessons. We were astonished and inspired by the performance of Billy Elliot; the actors spoke with so much character and we have learnt to put this into our own productions. Usually, we make a play about different celebrations for example, a play about Christmas or maybe Easter. Now we have loads of ideas to try out. But that’s not all…
Stoke Park also benefit from ballet lesson with Miss Sage. We have learnt an incredible dance from Billy Elliot’s ballet school audition (Electricity!) that was performed at Stoke Park School and was watched by a huge audience. Freddie has been so inspired from seeing the musical of Billy Elliot that it has spurred him on to be a better dancer: ‘Ever since I watched the show I’ve been practising my ballet skills even more than I did before.’
This talented student went on to perform an outstanding solo that included jumping over people and running through the middle of the surprised audience. When they first saw the dance they were crying with happiness and were really proud of the dancers. The dancers were nervous at first but after the spectacular show they wanted to perform the whole dance over and over again! Bravo Stoke Park!
Written by children in Year 5.
