00:04C'è un film che è stato fatto per la prima screta del film, Billy Elliot, in Cannes Film Festival
00:12in France.
00:13E, a chance, Elton John e David Furnish came to that.
00:16Elton had such a strong emotional response to it, it was actually David Furnish's partner
00:21who suggested straight afterwards that this would make a great musical.
00:25And I think Lee and I at that point didn't really take it seriously, too busy, so it took some
00:30years
00:31of really the persistence and enthusiasm of Elton then working with Lee to move it into different stages.
00:39And Lee started with lyrics and started singing lyrics to Elton, Elton would start writing songs.
00:44And then we started looking at sequences and started trying to explore what they might be on stage
00:48through quite a large number of workshops.
00:53I think Lee Hall would agree with me that the story has found its natural home in the theatre.
00:58I think we both prefer it to the film because it's so much more emotional and it's in real time.
01:06In other words, the show is designed in a sense to place a young Billy Elliot, the young performer,
01:13at the limit of what's possible.
01:14And I think the audience can really feel that you're really watching a kid really at the breaking point
01:20of what is possible for them to literally do.
01:22And there's something so unbelievably exciting about watching that in real time.
01:27And I think for us it was allowing certain elements of the story,
01:31allowing the political story to become more focused,
01:34allowing these sort of more surreal internal moments to become more expressive.
01:39For us it was a very good journey for the story to, as I say, find its rightful home.
01:45What's fantastic about Elton's music is that it uses so many different traditions.
01:50Folk traditions, anthem traditions, musical traditions, all working class traditions,
01:57but I just love how diverse it is and how it keeps surprising you,
02:01and obviously how emotional it is.
02:06It was a fantastic collaboration.
02:08He's just, for the whole, what, nearly ten years now,
02:11he's stayed involved, stayed enthusiastic,
02:16sees the show wherever we are in the world and comes and gives notes.
02:20It was just wonderful.
02:24What is the celebration of the experience?
02:26And what we try to do is highlight all the different skills they have
02:30and what they're really best at, to be honest, as well.
02:33And a celebration of all the different elements that they've learnt during their training
02:37and when they've been performing the show,
02:39from ballet to contemporary to hip-hop to gymnastics, do you know what I mean?
02:46And allowing them to celebrate what they've learnt,
02:48what they are and who they want to be in the future.
02:50Thank you.
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