Nat shares this latest news on behalf of Ryde Academy. Ed
West End star, Layton Williams, has made a return visit to Ryde Academy. Layton played the lead role in Billy Elliot in the West End, and Stephen in BBC3’s ‘Bad Education’ also starring in CBBC’s ‘Beautiful people’ and ‘School for Stars’.
He was previously a member of Matthew Bourne’s ‘New Adventures’ dance company and has toured with ‘Lord of the Flies’ where he helped prepare novice dancers for professional performances nationwide.
Most recently he has finished playing ‘Angel’ in the revived musical ‘Rent’ and subsequently has been nominated for an IARA award for ‘Best Dance Act 2017’. He is now resuming his role as Seaweed Stubbs for the hit musical ‘Hairspray’.
Following his first workshops at the Academy in 2015 and 2017 Layton returned to work with the cast of Billy Elliot, the school show being performed in December.
Layton Williams said:
“I absolutely loved visiting Ryde Academy to lead some Billy Elliot workshops. Ryde was actually the first school that ever invited me to lead a #DanceWithLayton workshop and Billy was my first job so it was clearly meant to be!
“The students worked so hard, especially Oli who’s going to play Billy. He is such a star and I have no doubt if the show was happening right now he’d 100% be up to the job.
“I hope everyone’s still working hard in rehearsals to make this show as incredible as can be.”
