An "ecstatic" Elton John joined a host of British celebrities May 12, 2005 for the opening night of fleet-footed musical "Billy Elliot."

Elton wrote the music for the show, based on the hit British film about a miner's son with a passion for dance.

"I feel ecstatic, I feel relieved, I feel a sense of pride," said Elton, who attended the premiere at London's Victoria Palace Theatre with his partner, David Furnish. "I'm so proud to have been a part of it."

Also in the audience were actor Hugh Grant and his woman friend Jemima Khan; Grant's ex, Elizabeth Hurley and her boyfriend, Arun Nayer; Live Aid founder Bob Geldof; and actor Jamie Bell, who starred in the original film.

Bell said the show — directed, like the film, by Stephen Daldry — was "the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

London's theater critics were equally enthusiastic about the $9.5 million West End musical that sets a young boy's struggle to dance against the backdrop of Britain's bitter 1984-1985 miners' strike:

THE GUARDIAN - MICHAEL BILLINGTON

"Turning small-scale movies into big musicals is a treacherous business. But Billy Elliot succeeds brilliantly because Elton John's music and Peter Darling's choreography enhance Lee Hall's cinematic concept.

Stephen Daldry's production is a model of fluidity and intelligence. He constantly reminds us that the special power of the musical is that it can express a lyrical idea through physical action.

Liam Mower, one of three young actors sharing the role of Billy, performs not just with heroic dedication but also a strange seriousness that is affecting.

But the show's success rests on its careful balance between Billy and the surrounding community. The musical, even more than the film, counterpoints Billy's personal triumph with the community's decline."

THE INDEPENDENT - PAUL TAYLOR

"There are all kinds of problems to be surmounted in adapting Billy Elliot into a stage musical.

But Stephen Daldry's exhilarating production has some brilliant solutions up its fluffy pink tutu.

The show is often terribly funny. Ryan Longbottom, who plays Michael, Billy's cross-dressing gay friend, is the kind of kid who would have Ethel Merman cowering under the furniture.

Before you can say Danny La Rue, he has Billy in a dress and tap-dancing with a group of fantasy frocks in Daldry's warm, generous and deeply talented production."

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - CHARLES SPENCER

"This is not a time to beat around the bush. Billy Elliot strikes me as the greatest British musical I have ever seen.

There is a rawness, a warm humour and a sheer humanity here that is worlds removed from the soulless slickness of most musicals.

The emotion always seems real and spontaneous, rather than cunningly manipulated to pull at the heartstrings.

The whole cast is blessed with a freshness and sincerity I have rarely seen equalled, and one leaves this triumphant production in a mist of tears and joy."

THE TIMES - BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE

"Stephen Daldry and Lee Hall have concocted a piece that's tougher, bolder and, as my tear-ducts can attest, more moving than its celluloid precursor.

Liam Mower was the boy chosen to play Billy last night and he proved impressively grave and dignified as an actor and gloriously skilful as a dancer

The musical as a whole is a celebration of dance: its lure, its excitement, its wonder, its surprises.

If there is a disappointment it is Elton John's music, which begins promisingly but never seems either tuneful or original."

DAILY MAIL - QUENTIN LETTS

"But for its dismally trite, Socialist Worker angle on the miners' strike, Billy Elliot the Musical would stand tall as a production of the most searing quality.

Even with this significant flaw this is a glorious show. It's a weepie, funny spectacle married to a super score by Sir Elton John.

Liam Mower will surely become the biggest child star since Mark Lester played Oliver Twist.

But the greatest success, the thing that lifts your soul and makes you cry and sends you home high with hope, is the belief that art us one of the great liberating forces available to man."

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