Elton will join past and present cast and crew of Billy Elliot on April 9, 2016 for a special celebration as the musical dances its way out of the West End after 11 years.

Elton, who composed the music for the show based on the hit film, will be joined by his husband David Furnish, the show’s writer Lee Hall and its director Stephen Daldry. Dozens of the 42 actors who have played the title role are expected to return for the final curtain, plus other former cast members and Easington Colliery Band from the pit village in the North-East where the story is set.

Daldry said the tale of the striking coalminer’s son with dreams of becoming a ballet dancer was always “a very personal” one for him. He said: “I think it’s a lot about sons and fathers and the respect and love you want from your father that a lot of men don’t feel they get, and certainly that was true for Elton. And it is a show about loss — about the loss of a mother, but also about the loss of a community and an industry and the destruction of a manufacturing industry, which we are seeing right now with [steel town] Port Talbot. It’s still something that resonates in-credibly deeply in this country and the miners were working class heroes in a way. It was one of the largest industries in the country, hundreds and thousands of men in 1984, just wiped out.”

The show is going on tour after 4,600 performances at the Victoria Palace Theatre, which is undergoing refurbishment. Daldry, nominated for a best director Oscar for the film, said it had found its “perfect place” on stage.

He credited Elton and David Furnish with that, adding: “They were at a small reception after our first ever screening and David said to Elton, ‘This could be a stage show’. As soon as Elton started working on his songs we were persuaded that it might have not only a different but a better life on stage.”

The April 9, 2016 performance will feature all the current 10 child actors who play Billy and his friends Michael and Debbie, in what Daldry called a “sort of extended tag team”. He said: “We wanted to celebrate all the kids, so we switch the kids from scene to scene and sometimes in the middle of scenes — and sometimes, much to the confusion of the adult cast, we’ll use all four at the same time.”

The show will raise money for the East Durham Trust, a charity which combats deprivation in the Easington area.

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