Billy’s so grateful to dance teachers
The Royal Ballet’s 12-yearold dancer Billy Tucker has told the Chronicle that teachers from his native Bath ‘made him the dancer that he is today.’
In an exclusive interview, Billy, who is currently appearing in The Nutcracker at Covent Garden was candid about how painful his feet get both on stage and during his four hours of daily practice.
“They tend to always hurt,” said Billy who trains from 11am to 1pm and again from 4.30pm until 6.30pm every day at the Royal Ballet School in Richmond. “If you don’t feel any pain or discomfort, then you’re not actually doing it properly. That’s what they always say.”
Billy started his journey at age eight, learning tap, modern and ballet at Bath’s Dorothy Coleborn school in Englishcombe Lane. “They want the best for every student,” he said.
One particular teacher and exprinciple dancer of the Royal Ballet, Karen Paisey, mentored Billy through both the Dorothy Coleborn and his next school in Radstock.
“She made me into the dancer I am now,” said Billy.
When Billy moved to the Radstock school, things got serious. “The school in Bath was more friendly and fun but the one in Radstock was just ballet and you had to do certain things,” he said.
“They prepare you for the tempo of what real ballet classes will be like.”
The Royal Ballet’s school in Richmond is also known as “White Lodge” and Billy raves about it: “Yeah yeah, it’s really fun,” he said. “There’s like 15 in each class and 30 in each year so there’s not many people in the school.”
Billy has a starring role in the Royal Ballet’s current run of The Nutcracker, one of three boys who plays ‘Fritz,’ the brother of Tchaikovsky’s main character Clara, but Fritz and the child dancers are only in Act One of the ballet so that they can leave at the interval. “It starts at 7.30pm so we can go home by nine.”
Fritz has some special dances with his sister Clara. “There are about eight Claras. And eight Sugar-plum Fairies. They haven’t actually officially given us the dates so we’ve just been practising with one Clara each,” he said. “We don’t really know who we’re going to be dancing with yet.”
However, since the interview it has been revealed that in one of the performances, the celebrated ballerina Francesca Hayward, also known for playing Victoria in the film of Cats will play the the Sugar Plum Fairy against Billy’s
Fritz. In some international productions, Fritz’s main dances are at the ‘Party Scene’ early in act one, to the classical Nutcracker tune ‘The Marches,’ but not at Covent Garden.
“Fritz doesn’t do the children’s party scene in Sir Peter Wright’s production where they do the March,” said Billy. “Fritz doesn’t do that one. He does: I think it’s later on, there’s a little mime section and then it goes into jumps and you’re trying to steal the nutcracker off Clara.”
“So that’s Fritz’s biggest section, when there’s a lot of jumping and then you break the nutcracker.”
In this production, there was planned to be a scene where Fritz and his sister Clara float, or a fly.
“Oh, so we were going to be doing that,” said Billy. “Well it’s not actually official yet: we might be flying. Because of Covid and touching and things, we might not actually be flying, so that’s a bit of a shame but I can’t complain about that.”
As we spoke, Billy had yet to run out on the main stage at the opera house, but as rehearsals were moving into their final week I asked him when he expected to feel the Covent Garden floorboards under his toes for the first time.
“Tomorrow!” he replied with a huge smile.
The Nutcracker: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, November 23, 2021 – January 8, 2022. Tickets: £1 - £135 from www.roh. org.uk. Billy’s first performance as ‘Fritz’ will be on December 7.
Because of Covid and touching and things, we might not actually be flying, so that’s a bit of a shame.