It seems that the musical "Billy Elliott" opened not so long ago on Broadway, where you have to pay considerably more than an arm and a leg to see a musical, and is as big a success there as it is in London. Wild horses would not drag me to a show with music by Elton John but, I understand, the film is not bad if you disregard the sentimental and inaccurate politics of it.
I have had to listen to far too many tearful statements about the destruction of the wonderful mining community and the evil government (Thatcher's) that turned this country towards economic success (since squandered by other governments) to be surprised by the piece on Powerline.
I also recall people's attitudes to those strikes that brought the country to a standstill every year and made life extremely uncomfortable for everyone. Yet sentimentality and left-wing mythology prevails in this country where people ought to know better and over the Pond where they probably know nothing about British miners or their strikes.
The Journal also dispatched Roger Kimball, a fan of the film, to check out the Broadway musical. Kimball derides the clichéd left-wing politics that infuse the musical. He observes: "It's an odd phenomenon. In theaters and museums across the Western world you find audiences applauding sentiments that, were they translated into the real world, would spell their demise."Nail, meet hammer.
