Billy Elliot announces UK tour and extends in West End

As Billy Elliot – The Musical prepares to celebrate its tenth birthday in the West End tonight (12 May 2015), it has announced it will embark on its first UK tour starting at Theatre Royal Plymouth next February.

The show, adapted by the same creative team behind the hit 2000 film, has also extended its booking period at the Victoria Palace Theatre until 17 December 2016. Further dates and full booking information will be announced soon.

Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry said: "From the start, Billy Elliot has given me enormous professional fulfilment as well as huge pride and the show will always have a very special place in my heart."

The show's composer Elton John added: "When I saw the show for the first time back in 2005 I was completely bowled over and ten years and forty London Billy Elliots later, I couldn't be more proud of this extraordinary show."

Set in a northern mining town, against the background of the 1984/’85 miners' strike, Billy Elliot is the inspirational story of a young boy's struggle against the odds to make his dreams to become a ballet dancer come true.

Writer Lee Hall told WhatsOnStage: "The current Tory party are actually going to go even further than the Thatcher government in attacking ordinary working class people. So I do think it's actually more relevant than when we made it – but I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing!"