Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre

Lee Hall and Elton John's multi-award winning musical

With a book and lyrics by Lee Hall who wrote the screenplay for the film, the stage adaptation of Billy Elliot has only been enhanced by a score from Elton John. Naturally, the musical is longer than the film, and this allowed for more emphasis on the miners’ crisis of 1984-85 than in the film. When this is contrasted with Billy’s struggle for both freedom of self expression and acceptance, it makes for an exhilarating and emotionally involving theatre experience. This also means that the stage show has a darker, harder edge than the film. It contains much of the same strong language and violent scenes, meaning that Billy Elliot is quite unsuitable for young children.

Billy Elliot opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in March 2005 and the press uniformly heralded the new show with its sensational dance sequences (choreographed by Peter Darling who also worked on the film), its drama and its sensitive handling of delicate issues.

In 2006, Billy Elliot won six of the nine Olivier awards it had been nominated for, marking the first time that the Best Actor in a Musical title was awarded in a shared capacity, to the three boys who shared the show’s title role. One of the boys, Liam Mower, was also the award’s youngest ever recipient. The show’s success has also gone global. The Broadway production opened in 2008, winning 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical.