Billy Elliot The Musical

Buy Tickets for Billy Elliot the Musical

This brilliant new staging is an adaptation of one of the most adored British films of the last decade. The extraordinary movie written by Lee Hall, directed by Stephen Daldry and choreographed by Peter Darling, is being developed for the stage by the same multi-award winning creative team. The score has been composed by music legend Elton John, the most celebrated UK singer songwriter of the last 30 years.

"Billy triumphs. The best British musical since Oliver!" Peter Willis, The Daily Mirror

"This is not a time to beat about the bush. Billy Elliot strikes me as the greatest British musical I have ever seen, and I have not forgotten Lionel Bart's Oliver! or Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. 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. And there is anger as well as joy, bitter resentment as well compassion, above all a sense of nagging grief... You don't have to agree with the show's defiantly old Labour politics to be moved by the passion with which they are expressed. Elton John has written a wonderful score that ranges from folk to hard rock, from razzle-dazzle show tunes to soaring anthems of human solidarity and defiance. Hall's vivid and, be warned, expletive-filled dialogue turns on a sixpence from gamy humour to sudden depths of pathos, and his lyrics are sharp and evocative... The whole cast is blessed with a freshness and sincerity I have rarely seen equalled, and one leaves this triumphant." Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

What makes Lee Hall's book and lyrics work so well is how they contrast a boy rising to ballet school against failing pits and a miners' strike. The message is that when politics and economics fail you, there is always just the chance that theatre might save you... This Billy is classic Broadway: in the best tradition of 42nd Street, he goes out an unknown and comes back if not a star then at least the proud holder of a Royal Ballet traineeship. But what Hall and Daldry and Elton have realised is this is the story of a community in crisis. Other characters such as his grieving-widower father and his magnificently tough ballet teacher take on an equal importance not only in his life but also in the show... It will probably run for ever in the West End and indeed on Broadway." Sheridan Morley, The Daily Express

"Turning small-scale movies into big musicals is a treacherous business. It failed with The Full Monty, which lost all of its gritty truth when musicalised. But Billy Elliot succeeds brilliantly because Elton John's music and, especially, Peter Darling's choreography enhance Lee Hall's cinematic concept. The musical, even more than the film, counterpoints Billy's personal triumph with the community's decline. Eleven-year-old Billy is an Easington miner's son who overcomes family bigotry and financial hardship to make it to the Royal Ballet School. But a show that begins with grainy newsreel footage celebrating the nationalisation of the coal industry ends with the collapse of the 1984 miners' strike. Billy's aspirations have been realised, but a local community faces ruin... 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. Thus, when Ann Emery, as Billy's gran, sings of her sour memories of her husband, we get on the other side of the stage a collective demonstration of the slow movements of the inebriated working-class male. It is the kind of effect that can only be achieved in a musical." Michael Billington, The Guardian