Did critics take a “Shine” to the new ”Billy Elliot” revival?

Philip Lowe, WhatsOnStage

★★★★★

“This may be a show about loss and precarity, but there is nothing at all precarious about Nikolai Foster’s utterly stunning new direction and Lucy Hind’s cleverly insightful natural movement-based choreography. Michael Taylor’s inspired set design is a wonder to behold and Ben Cracknell’s expressive lighting shows perfectly why he is often the go-to choice for Curve. Edd Lindley’s costume design takes us instantly back to the 80s, while Adam Fisher’s sound design totally hits the spot and the combination of Martin Koch’s orchestrations and musical director George Dyer and his hidden on-stage band make Curve’s Billy Elliot a sublime musical experience.”

Miriam Gillinson, The Guardian

★★★★★

“Where Stephen Daldry’s original production, which ran for 11 years, felt like Billy Elliot the Musical – with a capital Musical – Foster’s new version is more like a play with dance and songs. Lee Hall’s script is given plenty of room to breathe and rings with ideas around love and loss, community and isolation, passion and violence. The result is a musical of unusual depth that distils Hall’s play to its essence but also feels nuanced and truthful.”

Dominic Maxwell, The Times

★★★★★

“Has any recent British musical unlocked the tear ducts so effectively? Billy’s widowed dad — an excellent Joe Caffrey — starts off boorish, ends up a sweetheart, his pain palpable throughout. Sally Ann Triplett plays Mrs Wilkinson, the dance teacher who changes Billy’s life, with a winningly sweary mixture of the rambunctious and the tender. (In fact, unless informed otherwise, assume everyone plays their roles with a winningly sweary mixture of the rambunctious and the tender.)”

Holly Williams, The Telegraph

★★★★

“The design ensures that this production feels painted on the grandest canvas possible: a stripped-back approach reveals the breadth and depth of the stage, musicians visible on scaffolding at the back. Ben Cracknell deploys huge lighting rigs to lend scale and drama that is anything but kitchen sink, and Michael Taylor’s suggestive set includes moveable fencing and a three-storey mine shaft that functions as the Elliots’ home.”

Dave Fargnoli, The Stage

★★★★

“As Billy’s Mam, Jessica Daley haunts the space from the sidelines, hanging out on gantries or framed in doorways, but always picked out in a bright, saturating spotlight. An angelic figure, she only sings occasionally, but makes every appearance count with a powerful range and movingly expressive voice. Joe Caffrey – who played Billy’s older brother Tony in the original West End cast – returns here as Billy’s Dad. Utterly shattered by his wife’s death, he barely seems to be holding together at the best of times, and breaks down in believably gutting fashion during drunken singsong Deep Into the Ground. Though he provides many of the show’s most sombre moments, he also does a nice line in fish-out-of-water awkwardness while waiting backstage at Billy’s dance school audition.”