Billy Elliot Welcomes New Cast Members for 2007
James Gaddas and Dean McCarthy
in Billy Elliot
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Fourteen-year-old Dubliner Dean McCarthy is joining the cast of
Billy Elliot in the title role. McCarthy will alternate in the part with current Billys: Leon Cooke, Travis Yates and Colin Bates. Also joining the company is James Gaddas, who takes over the role as Dad, and Jonathan Bowyer and Amy Duggen, who will alternate the roles of Michael and Debbie, respectively. Trevor Fox will return to the role he created on stage as George, Billy’s boxing coach.
McCarthy started dancing for Brendan Scully when he was six years old. He competed regularly in competitions around the U.K. and Ireland and won many titles in both disco and hip-hop, including the All Ireland Champion, U.K. Disco Kid and Eurodance Champion.
Gaddas’ theatre credits include Art at the Wyndham’s Theatre, An Evening with Gary Lineker at the Duchess Theatre, A Chorus of Disapproval at National Theatre, The Messiah at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Who’s Out There for the Other Theatre Co, Hedda Gabler at the Bolton Octagon, Guys and Dolls for the Library Theatre Manchester, Some of My Best Friends are Husbands for the Leicester Haymarket, Hamlet at the Crucible, Sheffield, Romeo and Juliet at the Nuffield, Southampton as well as the RSC Season at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. On television his many roles have included Vinnie Sorrell in Coronation Street and Neil Grayling in Bad Girls, as well as Jonathan Creek, Bombay Blue, Drop the Dead Donkey and Between the Lines.
Fox plays has worked extensively with the Live Theatre in Newcastle, where his work has included Lee Hall’s
Cooking with Elvis, Close the Coalhouse Door, Oh What a Lovely War, Double Lives and
Twelve Tales of Tyneside. His other theatre work includes
All Credit to the Lads for Sheffield Theatres,
Bones for Hampstead Theatre and
The Cherry Orchard for the Oxford Stage Company. His film credits include
Billy Elliot, Gabriel and Me and
The One and Only.
Bowyer is 11 and hails from Manchester. He attended the Gwyneth Hare School of Dancing and studied ballet, tap, jazz and modern, and also was a Junior Associate at the Royal Ballet School, competing in many dance festivals. He played the role of John in Peter Pan at the Manchester Opera House in 2005 and appeared in The Wizard of Oz at the Lowry, as well as A Night at the Musical at the Manchester Palace Theatre.
Duggan, age 10, is from Northumberland. She began learning to dance at age tthree and trained at the Reavley Theatre School in Gateshead and in Hexham at the Tynedale Academy of Performing Arts and the Phillips Cain School of Dance.
They join current cast members Sally Dexter (Mrs. Wilkinson), Chris Lennon (Tony), Ann Emery (Grandma), Alex Delamere (Mr. Braithwaite), Sara Poyser (Mum), Isaac James (Older Billy) and Cooke, Yates and Bates (alternating as Billy).