Billy Elliot opens at the Sunderland Empire

Billy Elliot the Musical has come home for a bit. The show opened at the Sunderland Empire on Thursday 4 November and runs there until Saturday 28 November, before the production heads off on a UK tour that takes it to Manchester, Edinburgh, London, Cardiff, Dublin and Bradford. It is a fitting place to start, given the story is set in a northern town during the miners' strike of 1984–85, and follows Billy's journey from the boxing ring to the ballet class.

The numbers behind it are the kind that make a show hard to ignore. It has been seen by more than 12 million people across five continents and has picked up more than 85 international awards, including ten Tonys and five Oliviers. The stage version is based on the 2000 film, which won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar, with music by Elton John, book and lyrics by Lee Hall and direction by Stephen Daldry. Hall, born in Newcastle, wrote both the original film and the musical, and the choreography is by Peter Darling.

As always with Billy, the boys sharing the title role are the ones to watch. Four of them take turns: Noah Mannion, 12 or 13 and from Stockport, who represented England at the Dance World Cup in 2025 and was crowned Global World Champion; Rafferty Smale, 12, a full-time student at the Royal Ballet School's White Lodge; Spencer Collins, 13, from California, who won the Hope Award at the 2025 Youth America Grand Prix; and William Gurney, 12 or 13, from Berkshire, a Sylvia Young Theatre School student who recently played Tommy in Matilda the Musical. There is a nice bit of full-circle casting too: Liam Mower, one of the first boys to play Billy when the show premiered in 2005, returns as the older Billy, Billy Mayor. He and two others won the Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical in 2006, the youngest ever to do so.

Around them, the adult cast is well-known. Annette McLaughlin is back as Mrs Wilkinson after playing the role on the last UK and Ireland tour in 2016; Deka Walmsley plays Dad; and Lesley Joseph, nominated for an Olivier for Young Frankenstein, takes on Grandma. The children's cast is partly local, with Scarlett Gardener, 9, from Sunderland, and Durham's Lola Cant and Paige Cook sharing the role of Debbie. Oisin-Luca Pegg, 13, from Birmingham, who was world champion in musical theatre in 2024, is among the boys sharing the role of Michael.

If you are bringing younger children, it is worth knowing the show is recommended more for older ones, because of the strong language and the backdrop of the 1984–85 miners' strike. That strike is not just scenery; it is the engine of the plot, and the production does not shy away from it. The strike began in March 1984 when the National Coal Board announced an accelerated mine-closure programme, and at its peak, at least 142,000 miners were out. It was a brutal conflict, with nearly 10,000 miners arrested and several deaths, and it fundamentally changed the British coal industry. By 1994, only 15 of the 174 mines remained open, and the last deep mine, Kellingley Colliery, closed in 2015.

Practicalities are straightforward. The Sunderland Empire is the largest theatre in the North East, run by the Ambassador Theatre Group, and it sits on High Street West. The box office and public areas open 90 minutes before the performance, and there are five bars and the theatre's own restaurant, Pizza Al Teatro, if you want to arrive early. After Sunderland, the tour continues to the Palace Theatre in Manchester from 2 December, the Edinburgh Playhouse in January, and then a West End run at the Adelphi from 12 February, its first return to the West End in more than a decade.