Did I tell you we went to see Billy Elliot?

Did you know he's a deaf mute?

The lovely Cindy went to Leicester Square on Tuesday to buy half-price tickets for Billy at the Victoria Palace Theatre that night. Great job. And you can imagine how pumped we were to see it.

Beautiful old theatre sitting across the street from Victoria Station. So, we took the train and arrived, of course, a few minutes ahead of our 7:30 kick-off. Which came around 7:32...those Brits are not necessarily as prompt as they could be.

Nevertheless, at 7:32 a little kid comes running on stage and an old black/white film footage begins to run. (The musical is about a coal miner's strike in the 80's in the UK.) There's no sound on the film. All of a sudden there's this loud pop and bang in the sound system and everything on stage goes dark. Couple of minutes later a Stage Manager comes out and says there is a technical difficulty and that it will be repaired shortly.

About 15 minutes later another guy comes out - some dude higher up the Chain of Command - and says that they are working feverishly on getting this fixed and will get it done. By this time, some people are leaving. Most are staying. (Some kids in the balcony start to do The Wave.) When the show started there did not appear to be an empty seat in the house.

Finally at 8:15, 45 minutes after the scheduled sart, the dude returns. (I had told Cindy if we see that guy one more time, it will not be good news.) Sure enough. He said they had been unable to fix their problem, and that the "show would be abandoned this evening." Well, F that.

But, that's the way it was. As we left the theatre folks were talking to each other. This older gentleman next to us grumbles: "It's that British Petroleum Syndrome." And then I mumbled, "Or that English futbol problem." Chuckles.

But, they said since we bought on a credit card, the cost would be reversed...wonder if that half-price dealer agrees? I even half-heartedly asked about my 5 GBP program I purchased, and they told me to go to the counter and they would refund...and they did. I could have kept it as a conversation item for the Musical we did not get to see. But...it gave us more time for dinner and relaxing that evening, so all's well that ends well!