Les Miserables and Billy Elliot

Cailin and I love Broadway musicals so undoubtedly we also loved all of the West End shows we got the chance to see. One of which, we really did get to see by chance. Our program hosted activities for us every week and one of them was a scavenger hunt around London. It involved going around Central London finding answers to trivia questions that could be found by discovering more about our surroundings. For example, one of the questions was to find the Lord Nelson statue in Trafalgar Square and write down what body part he was missing. Lord Nelson lost his arm in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1797 which was depicted in his statue. Westminster University had their reading week (no classes) when the scavenger hunt was planned, so a lot of people were traveling. This ended up working to our advantage since there were only two other teams besides ours. After running all over Central London, Cailin, our friend, and I rushed back to the pub, our designated meeting place, to hand in our answers to our event coordinator before the time limit ran out. We found the pub just in time! The event coordinator tallied up all the scores and we ended up winning! 

Our prize was three tickets to any West End show that we wanted! Since Les Mis was so popular this year because of the movie release, it was the hardest show to get tickets to, so we choose it as our prize! I had already seen the production and read the play in 6th grade through a club I was in, but Cailin had never seen it. However, she did read Victor Hugo's novel so we both had some idea of what the performance was going to be like and were extremely excited! The show didn't disappoint! When the actor who played Jean Valjean sung, "Bring Him Home," we were all teary eyed. It is one of the few musicals that almost every line is sung and the singing was just beautiful. 

Although I should probably stop writing now and let Cailin share her thoughts, I just have to comment a little on my favorite musical of all time; Billy Elliot! Cailin and I first saw it on Broadway and it instantly became my favorite. The boys that play Billy are usually no older than 13 and as young as 7. They have to dance tap, contemporary, and classical ballet styles while singing and acting. All the while speaking in a Geordie accent. I think I really enjoy this show because I danced ballet for 8 years and therefore understand how truly talented these young kids are. I never would have dreamed of doing more than two or three pirouettes at a time and Billy has to do several in a row. I also have always admired young talent as it often goes overlooked by the achievements of adults. In turn, I just had to see the show in London as it is no longer running in NY. Luckily, West End shows sell inexpensive tickets for seats that might have obstructed views. So, we got third row seats for 10 pounds since the dancer's feet were hard to see when they were further back stage. 

Since we had already seen the show we thought the seats would be perfect. They ended up being even better than we expected because it gave a completely different perspective to the show. It felt like the actors were performing just for us since they were close enough to make direct eye contact with! Being so close also made me realize that the boy playing Billy looked oddly familiar. I brushed it off since I was in London. I don't know anyone form London haha! But surely enough, the boy who played Billy that night also played one of the Billy's from the NY production and I remembered him from the playbill. It's a small world. Well needless to say, I left the show smiling from ear to ear! Oops, I wrote a lot more than a little. Sorry Cai!