Billy Elliot is a 2000 British dance drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Set in northeastern England during the 198485 coal miners strike, it stars Jamie Bell as 11yearold Billy, an aspiring dancer dealing with the negative stereotype of the male ballet dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy s older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher. In 2001, author Melvin Burgess was commissioned to write the novelisation of the film based on Lee Hall s screenplay. The story was adapted for the West End stage as Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005; it opened in Australia in 2007 and on Broadway in 2008.