Lee Hall: Billy and beyond

It’s been 24 years since Billy Elliot was released, the coming-of-age film that has since become a cultural landmark across the globe.

At the heart of the critically acclaimed classic is Lee Hall.

Born and raised in Walkerville, in Newcastle, Lee’s first introduction to the world of storytelling came through a youth club in Wallsend in his teens.

He says: “I think the North East was a really good place to grow up for somebody who was interested in what I was interested in.

“From as young as I can remember, I was seeing plays at school, and then when I grew up a bit, I realised they were based not far from where I lived.

“It was a very rich place to get to know theatre without really thinking of it.

“It didn’t feel like it was something posh.

“It was a time when, especially in North Tyneside, the council was putting lots of money into having drama groups for kids.”

Such a scene is a far cry from where we are today.

Lee says: “I had two great drama teachers, Chris Heckles, at Benfield School, who inspired us to go to these groups.

“Then, at Tynemouth College, I met a drama teacher called Hilary Derman, who inspired us to do this for a living.”

It was during this time at the youth theatre clubs that Lee began working on stories reflective of the world around him.

He says: “It was the late 1970s and early 1980s – the time of Thatcher – and it seemed like a pretty grim time with all of the heavy industry starting to collapse and the Miners’ Strike.

“It was quite clear that the region – what I initially thought was what the region was about, what people’s dads did, working in these factories – was disappearing.

“It was quite a highly politicised time and so all the things that we were doing, when we did these plays in the youth theatre, we were really talking about what was happening politically.”

During this time, a career in the arts seemed quite accessible to Lee.

Lee says: “I didn’t even think about it, it just felt natural because there were so many people, theatre companies and local councils supporting us kids

“By the time I went to university, I had this really good knowledge of theatre and its theories and politics.

“There was an understanding that to be artists, you didn’t have to leave and do something and become something else, that there was a point of trying to portray who you were and where you’re from, and celebrate the region and ordinary, working-class people.”

Now that concept has shifted entirely.

He adds: “Drama and the arts in schools have been really pulled back over the last ten to 15 years.

“I think all the infrastructure in the local community, in the councils, has largely gone.

“From my point of view, it’s gone absolutely backwards.”

Contrary to where he is today, there wasn’t a movie-style dream of always wanting to become a playwright for Lee; it was more of a slow burner.

He says: “I was a bit bookish at school, but I don’t know if I really wanted to be a writer then.

“I used to write songs for the plays; through that I started thinking I could maybe write some scenes to go with the songs.

“I was interested, but I didn’t really have the confidence to do it.”

After finishing sixth form, Lee attended Cambridge University to study English Literature, hoping it would unlock his potential as a writer.

However, he soon discovered formal education wasn’t the key to developing his talent.

He says: “I went away to university and thought that maybe they would teach me how to write.

“Going to Cambridge was unusual from my background – I thought there must be a key to this that I had to learn, and it must be something that I don’t understand.

“When I was there, I realised that actually, what I had learned in Newcastle was much more useful for being a writer, and that what I had to do, was to go back and write about growing up and the area I knew.”

Lee moved back to Newcastle to work at some of the youth theatres.

By this time, it was the late 1980s and early 1990s, and times had certainly changed.

Funding for the arts was being cut, and Lee found that trying to raise money to put on shows meant he didn’t have time to write plays.

That led him to London, where he worked with friends who ran a theatre.

While in London, Stephen Daldry – a friend of Lee’s and eventual director of Billy Elliot – was working on a play on Broadway and asked Lee if he’d like to join him in New York.

It was there that he truly began honing his craft as a writer, a journey that would eventually lead him to creating Billy Elliot.

Lee says: “I was trying to explain to people in New York what it was like to grow up in Newcastle in the 1980s, and started really thinking quite a lot about my childhood, and also how strange it was.

“I was trying to explain about mining, the heavy industry and the Miners’ Strike.

“I think I realised how specific it was if you grew up in Newcastle.”

Then, one day, Lee had an idea.

He says: “I was in the bath, and I don’t know why, but I had this vision of a little lad in a tutu running down a back lane, like the back lanes we used to play in.

“Initially, I thought, ‘what a weird image’.

“But then, ‘what if you had a miner’s son who wanted to be a ballet dancer?’.

“I thought, ‘well that’s ridiculous, no miner’s son would want to be a ballet dancer’, and just forgot about it.”

After some success with radio plays, Lee was invited to pitch ideas to the BBC.

He decided to pitch the story of a boy who wanted to dance in a pit village during the Miners’ Strike.

He said: “To be quite honest, they weren’t that interested, but they had another idea that they liked.

“So I said, ‘well, if you do that one, will you just let me do this one?’”

A few years passed, and despite initial rejections – some didn’t want a ballet story, others dismissed the miners’ angle – he eventually showed it to friend Stephen, who agreed it was a good idea and the film quickly got made.

Although Lee didn’t have any expectations, with Billy Elliot being the first film he’d had made, it caught the eye of a certain British singer-songwriter.

He says: “Even before it come out properly, Elton John had seen it when it was shown in Cannes, and he said it should be a musical.”

Initially, Lee hesitated, thinking a musical wouldn’t suit the authentic, working-class nature of the story.

However, the musical allowed him to explore the pressing political issues that were undeniable during that era.

He adds: “I realised that if I made a British musical, but did it in British idioms, there was a chance to make it more political than the film, and explore a lot of the tensions and the issues.

“I realised I could use the musical traditions, miners’ hymns, folk songs and the type of dances they would have had in the welfare halls in the 1950s.

“I started thinking, ‘if I could use the music that would come naturally from those communities, I could make something which made emotional and political sense’.”

Both the film and musical went on to win various awards, including the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, Best New Musical at the 2006 Laurence Olivier Awards and Best Musical at the 2009 Tony Awards.

Over the last two decades, the way we watch films has evolved.

With the increasing popularity of streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix, more people are opting to stay at home.

This shift has directly impacted how writers like Lee approach their work.

He says: “I think I’m quite conscious about trying to make things immediately interesting.

“For a film in the cinema, the most important moment is the end, because if people leave the movie theatre feeling good – whether it’s in tears, laughter or euphoria – they’ll say to people, ‘you should see that film because it will make you feel a certain way’.

“Whereas, for streamers, the most important thing is the beginning.

“Because, after three or four minutes, if it seems really boring, you’re never going to get to the end.”

The evolution of streaming has also presented other challenges for creatives in the industry.

Lee adds: “It has changed everything; it’s changed the whole business and it’s much, much harder to get things made.

“I think it would be impossible to have Billy Elliot made now, even for me, but especially for a young person doing that as their first film.”

Careers in the arts are becoming increasingly difficult for young people, particularly those from a working-class background.

Research shows only 8.4 per cent of those working in film, TV, video, radio and photography identify as working-class.

Lee says: “I think I was one of the last people from my background that got through the system easily.

“I think it was one of the legacies of the Thatcher time that they pulled up the drawbridge and weren’t going to let people through very easily.

“Since then, we’ve had the collapse of the heavy industries and, with that, the unions and various nefarious Tory regimes that haven’t really done us much good.

“The populism that has come from this, because of the neglect of the region and not replacing those industries, has made people very insecure and angry.”

This is something Lee says he tries to combat in his writing.

He says: “Somehow, it’s gone so far backwards that it seems like it’s almost inappropriate.

“A lot of my plays are about the arts being a really normal thing for ordinary working people.

“We’ve almost been conned into thinking that’s not true – that it’s just for posh people, a different culture and it’s to be frowned upon.

“But that sort of inverse snobbery is not a culture I inherited.”