What is the name for a collection of paedophiles?

I know I have been somewhat remiss with this blog recently. Entirely unoriginal reasons for that so I will move swiftly on.

In the last two months I have been to China, New York and most recently, South Wales. I worked out that in the past twelve months I had actually been on four continents (Europe included which I only add because when I mentioned the four continents thing to my daughter she was at a total loss to think what the fourth one could be. I worry about her sometimes...) as it was just a year ago I was in Egypt. Totally amazing - and something I would never have imagined being able to say in my entire lifetime, let alone in the space of one year. I will return with highlights of those trips but for now something that has been playing on my mind this weekend.

Something else I could never imagine being able to say (or even wishing to be able to say) is that I have seen a certain musical* 9 times and counting. I don't even particularly like musicals as a general rule, but this has become a mother and daughter 'thing' for us, as my daughter is somewhat obsessed with the show. If I tell you that in the past few weeks her bedroom has been redecorated solely because she obtained two framed posters of the show, and her previous decor did not show them off to best effect, that may give some indication of the degree of her devotion to this show. She spends hours on the on line fans forum, and is pretty much a font of knowledge of All Things Billy.

Now I do realise 9 times to the same show must sound insane but this pales into insignificance against some of the other people on the fans forum, some of whom regularly see two performances on one day and have seen the show literally hundreds of times.

So who are these truly devoted fans of what they always refer to as BETM?

Well there are of course some young girls like my daughter who are captivated by the storyline, the music and the dancing, and of course by some of the young lads who play the title role. So far, so normal. BUT, and if I knew how to enlarge the font that BUT would have been a much larger BUT, then there is another category of fans and I experienced this group last Saturday night.

It so happened that last Saturday was the last performance of one of the Billy's. A very pretty 14 year old boy he is too. I reluctantly agreed that we could stay behind for a while after the show so that H could try and get a photo and/or an autograph. The signs for success looked good as there were not too many young girls waiting as well, but in the event we were thwarted in our mission . Whilst the young star did indeed come to the door prepared for photographs with fans and to write autographs the instant he appeared there was a stampede and we were just shoved unceremoniously out of the way. Not by other young girls I hasten to add, but by very dodgy looking single men who when I thought about it, had been lurking around in the shadows. These, as I soon learned, were the fanatical fans that see practically every show. Now maybe it is because I am a social worker that I am unable to think of any innocent reason why these particular individuals are so keen on this of all shows?

Not surprisingly the lad's chaperon got him back inside the theatre pretty damn quick.



That aside, if anyone has not seen this show and has the chance to go, it is simply breath taking, and I would recommend it to anyone. Thankfully it is possible to go and avoid the dirty mac brigade.



* The reasons for my reticence to actually name the show here is that on the previous occasions I have written about BE I have been swamped by visitors who search the net for all things Billy, and frankly I don't want perverts here.