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Saw two GREAT shows today in London.

First up was the smash hit of the summer -- "Billy Elliott -- the Musical." It's done by the same creative team who did the movie with the addition of Elton John creating the music.

They have three different 12-year-olds who rotate performing the lead role -- and the one I saw today was amazing. They've really turned it into a powerful musical.

During the scene where Billy's first dance teacher reads a letter Billy's Mom wrote him before she died, you could heard the audience choking back sobs (it wasn't just me.)

And something I've never seen in London before -- about half the audience gave the show a Standing Ovation. London audiences are traditionally too reserved to stand. And I don't think it was just Americans standing at the end of today's performance.

I didn't like all the cussing in the script. I suppose that's the way coal mining families in Ireland talked in the 80s -- but it still bugs me with so many child actors on stage. And it wasn't just the adult actors who were dropping cuss bombs.

And the First Act had a lot of adults slapping kids around. Again, realistic but it bugged me. But then during the Interval (British for Intermission) I saw something else I have never seen in a theater: a Mother in an argument with her Daughter that ended with a loud slap across the Daughter's back as the Mother huffed off. So I'll give the show a pass on the child abuse and stick with my cussing harrumph.

This show is the hottest ticket in London right now. I sat in the "Grand Circle." Doesn't that sound elegant? In America we call it the Second Balcony. I'm not sure what it says about Britain's class system that the worst seats are in the "Grand Circle" and the best seats are in the "Stalls."

Tonight I saw a dark comedy at the National Theater called "Theater of Blood." It stars Jim Broadbent and is based on an MGM movie that starred Vincent Price and Diana Rigg.

Broadbent plays a terribly hammy Shakespearean actor who invites all the critics who have panned him to a theater where he proceeds to kill them, using a different Shakespearean murder scene for each one. The knife scene from Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc's burning at the stake, etc. They are all so over the top it's quite funny and each murder (there are 7 critics) earned a round of applause.

Broadbent really pulls of this over-the-top role and any Shakespeare fan (that's you, Renee) would love all the references to so many of the Bard's plays. (Think "Forbidden Broadway" does Shakespeare.)

I'm in a different hotel tonight and tomorrow (the Waldorf Hilton) and the internet access stinks. (I threw a tantrum and I'm posting this from the Operations Manager's computer tonight). But I may or may not post on Sunday -- so if there's nothing new until Monday that doesn't mean Osama got me. Or I might get motivated to go to an Internet Cafe tomorrow. We'll see.