The Billy Elliot musical could pirouette on to the big screen
A BIG-SCREEN version of the musical Billy Elliot is not out of the question, the key producer of the l ong- running hit has revealed.
Eric Fellner, who runs Working Title Films with Tim Bevan and leads the producing team behind Billy Elliot, told me he has had discussions with the show’s key creatives — composer Elton John, book writer and lyricist Lee Hall, director Stephen Daldry and choreographer Peter Darling — about seriously exploring a Billy Elliot Musical movie.
‘We just need to act on it,’ Fellner said.
But it’s some years away because all the key players are booked up way ahead on other projects.
First will come celebrations for the show’s tenth anniversar y at t he Victoria Palace Theatre in London next week.
‘None of us had any inclination that a show like this could ever run as long in the UK, and I think it has tapped into a social undercurrent of British life,’ Fellner told me.
He said productions of Billy running in countries around the world are successful because global audiences can relate to ‘a kid who wants to follow his dream’.
I popped in to see a performance a few days ago and watched Brodie Donougher as Billy and Ruthie Henshall as the pit town ballet school teacher.
I was struck by how the musical still speaks about the nature of family and being able to break out of your environment. And it’s still the best musical in London!
There’s talk of Billy touring the UK, starting in 2016-17. And in the next couple of years it will have to move out of the Victoria Palace as the theatre is to become part of largescale building plans in the neighbourhood.