Abington High School Does Billy Elliot

More than 80, students in years 6 to years 9 at Abington High School, Wigston are getting ready for one of the biggest performances of their lives. They will be performing acts from Billy Elliot, as part of a national initiative to celebrate 5 years of Billy Elliot being performed in the West End. A total 115 schools from across the country are participating to recount the story of a young boy, who faces adversity to get to dreams, alongside portraying family life, set in a mining community in 1980s, in County Durham.

I had the pleasure of recently sitting in one of their rehearsals, as they ran through their performances of Billy Elliot, I saw them perform Solidarity and Electricity, and it made me realise something very important, not to underestimate what young people can do, the young people aged 10-14, moved me emotion. They have been dedicating afterschool time, and lunchtime, since January and even their half term to get the performance together. Young people prove time after time what great things they can create if they are given the chance and it is something that you forget as you grow older and you need constant reminding, and watching them sing ‘Once We Were Kings’ reminded me. Another thing was how they grasped the accent, even when they were singing.

I spoke to some of the young performers Nathan Bruce, Callum Duffy and Joseph Parry all aged 13 and 12 year old Jack Atkinson who said that they are ‘looking forward to the experience and the atmosphere’ of performing at Curve and when asked why people should come and see them perform, Callum answered ‘It’s not everyday you see a just normal high school going to a place like curve its all the stage schools that are going to be there, whilst were just a normal school and without the staff we wouldn’t have got here.’

Following a conversation with 14-year-old Rachel she said she was proud to part of the school. And when asked why people should come and see them she answered with a smile, ‘because its not just our school doing it even those ours will be the best.’

Abington High will be performing their version of Billy Elliot along with other schools across the county and country on the big stage, at Curve on Sat the 19^th of July. The staff and students have been working really hard, and will be with several other schools performing a shorter version of Billy this will be tugging at your heart strings this is a family evening to the theatre not to be missed.

Following their performance on the 19^th the cast will also be heading down to with the youth theatre in London on the 24^th of June to see Billy Elliot performed in the West End. They will also be performing on 3 evenings at the school as well as visiting primary schools to showcase their performance.

By Hasmita