THE multi award-winning Billy Elliot is a production that marks the passage of time in more ways than one.

Writer Lee Hall’s story takes audiences back to the troubled times of the miners’ strike during the 80s. But Anna-Jane Casey reckons the musical is also used as a marker for all the boys that take on the iconic role.

The 45-year-old has reprised her role as Mrs Wilkinson for the touring production after first playing the character in 2013 and 14 in the West End.

“That was when my second little girl was a tiny dot and now she’s walking and talking,” said Anna-Jane, who grew up in Lancashire and has relatives in Winwick.

“So you kind of map time in Billy Elliot to the size of children.

“It’s true of the Billys as well. I’m sure the mums and dads of the lads who are here, who are just phenomenal, will measure the passage of time by how many inches they’ve grown or how much their voice has dropped.”

Now seen by almost 11 million people across five continents, Anna-Jane admits she was one of those swept away by the sensation about a coal miner’s son who joins a ballet class long before she joined the cast.

She added: “I remember seeing it in about 2009. I was doing Chicago at the time and I remember going to see a matinee and sitting in the dress circle and watching it surrounded by school kids and all of us sobbing. It’s heart-warming, it’s beautiful and it’s real.

“It’s not everyone doing jazz hands. This is a real story of things that went down in this country.

“I’m a child of the 70s so I remember the miners’ strike very vividly. I was a school girl at the time and saw those people and how they struggled.

“Three quarters of a million people lost their livelihood in that time and it has had an effect on those areas even up to this day.

“The great thing about when you do Billy Elliot is of course you learn all the songs, routines and the script but you also learn all the history of it.

“Even today in 2017 we still have areas of the country where if someone’s son wanted to be a hairdresser, make-up artist or ballet dancer then it would be frowned upon and that’s really sad. I think in a modern society we should be celebrating all of that.”

Despite the musical being set more than 30 years ago during the bitter battle between the miners’ union and Margaret Thatcher’s government, Anna-Jane reckons the politics of Billy Elliot are still relevant today.

She said: “We’ve got a General Election coming up and still the gap between what we would call the working classes and the higher classes is still massive. I’m from a working class family. My parents were market traders from Lancashire. For all my life it’s been a Labour family and now I’m coming back to Labour after looking at Mrs May and her thing.”

Anna-Jane can also relate to the youngsters playing Billy because she was just 10 when she started getting parts for shows that were visiting Manchester. Then she had her big break when she played Rumpleteaser in Cats in the West End, aged 16.

She added: “It is strange now as a 45-year-old woman looking at these kids and remembering where their energy comes from and the excitement of being in a theatre, getting on stage and getting a round of applause at the end of the night.

“It puts a nice sparkle on something that could be mundane when you’re doing the same show eight times a week. There’s an energy that comes from kids that can’t get from anybody else.”

Anna-Jane’s CV also includes parts in EastEnders, The Bill, Doctors, Heartbeat and Holby City and she even had a small role in Kevin Spacey’s Beyond The Sea. But she told Weekend one of her favourites was appearing in Seth MacFarlane’s animated comedy Family Guy.

Anna-Jane said: “I work with the John Wilson Orchestra and Seth sings with them. He’s been very kind and has taken the whole orchestra to LA and things like that.

I’m probably the only British person he knows and I think that amuses him. So he invited me to be in Family Guy so I said yes, clearly, as it’s the greatest TV show.

“I thought I’d be flown to LA for it but no – I sat in a studio to Soho. But it was a good laugh being in the show and seeing your name in that font was lovely.”

n Billy Elliot is at Liverpool Empire from Tuesday until May 27. Visit atgtickets.com/liverpool