June 21st 2005

I never thought there was anything particularly odd about a Geordie ballet dancer - I mean, why not? Despite what many may think, the arts are not the exclusive preserve of the sensitive south. I'm quite sure they dance in the north, too - perhaps even in Scotland. I loved the film Billy Elliot - such a great story and so well done it made me cry. I was, needless to say, very excited therefore to get a ticket for the West End musical version.

All lazy stereotypes aside, for a straight man I have a surprising love of musical theatre. So why was I so uncomfortable during the show? The seats were as you would expect, tiny and springy and hard. I am quite used to tuning that discomfort out. The temperature was OK - conditioned air, I expect - and I know I was not having digestive trouble as that is invariably noisy and followed by looks from my family.

So why was I squirming during the show? It's as good as they say it is. Elton John has done them proud - we laughed when we were supposed to, cried when the music suggested and clapped along as the miners and policemen danced together. So what on earth made me feel so awkward? Perhaps it was the fact that there we all were, dressed in our finery in a posh London theatre enjoying a very well-produced and rather expensive spectacular of a show about the heart being torn out of the industrial north, set to music and song. It was riot - literally at points - but so beautifully choreographed. The dignity and pride of whole communities decimated before our eyes with an eminently hummable soundtrack. It is a razzle-dazzle document of a time of shocking social upheaval that I spent in a comfy boarding school in Sussex. Perhaps that was what it was.