All singing, all dancing, all Geordie

A chorus of boys is chanting in unison in Geordie accents: "Please don't have a heart attack in the car park, grandma". They're concerned too about their social life. "After the curry we're going to a party in the city," they repeat together.

Welcome to the Billy Elliot School, a sort of finishing school for would-be Geordies where they learn to sing, dance and talk with an accent. Dialect coach William Conacker is pleased with the results of the first lesson, telling his class: "You sound very Geordie already."

He's right. His nine-strong class of ten, 11 and 12-year-olds are sounding like proper little Robson Greens after only half an hour's tuition. When he packs them off to learn a chunk of Geordie dialogue phonetically, you half expect them to tell him, "Howay, you've gorra be joking, man".

For four months these boys are being schooled in the art of being Billy Elliot with lessons every Saturday morning in Leeds. At the end of training, the production team will audition them for the London West End stage musical. They might be cast as Billy or his friend Michael. The unlucky ones will be sent away in the knowledge that they've had the benefit of intensive training by top tutors.

Writer Lee Hall describes Billy Elliot The Musical as "the Forth Bridge of theatre" because once you get to the end you have to start all over again, the difference being that the £6m London West End show involves training boys not painting bridges. A conveyor belt of Billy Elliots is needed to feed the show, based on the hit film about a North-East miner's son who wants to become a ballet dancer.

No sooner does one group of young performers debut on stage than another set begins preparing to take over six months later. There must always been a fresh trio of Billy Elliots, as well as his friends Michael and Debbie and ballet class members, waiting in the wings.

Hall - who's adapted his film for the stage and written the lyrics for Elton John's music - says it's unusual to find a whole show built around kids with one of them, Billy, as the most important character.

"What's really moving is that the three boys we have in the show now and some of the boys in the second cast are the most talented kids of their age at singing, acting and dancing," he says.

There's disappointment that no North-East youngsters have been considered good enough all-rounders to be enrolled in the Billy Elliot School. The first three boys sharing the lead role come from Yorkshire - Hull and Sheffield - and Essex.

The stage Billy faces a tougher task than Billingham lad Jamie Bell did on screen. Filming meant the work was spread over months and, if something wasn't right, could be done again. On stage, Billy has to be on top form for the whole two-and-a-half hour production. Laws governing child performers only permit them to do four performances a week over a six-month period. Then they have to "retire".

'We had to find three who could sing and dance, and the dancing is not easy. It's proper adult tap," says producer Jon Finn. "Even our dance captain took a while to catch up with the kids. Jamie Bell came up to one of the rehearsals and they out-tapped him."

At Leeds Civic Theatre, Billy Elliot School pupils work an eight-hour day taking classes in ballet, contemporary and street dance, tap and acrobatics. All have had some previous training, although nothing as strenuous or demanding as Billy. The dancing in the show is tailored to each boy's strengths. Some are better at ballet, others at contemporary dance.

"The school is fantastic training. The teachers are some of the best in the industry," says Clemency Carlisle, assistant children's casting director and school administrator. "It's a long day. but they all really enjoy it. They're potentially all Billy, but we need people who can do everything."

These boys are very young. Two are brothers who've been doing disco and hip hop for years. Another is a Royal Ballet student. Most are into street and hip hop.

"One of the original Billy Elliots had done a lot of modern dance but no tap or ballet. He's come along so far with the training and obviously has a natural talent for it," Clemency says.

Thousands have been auditioned for the musical since November 2003. Most of the school's current students come from Manchester, others from Blackpool and Cardiff. Another lives in Plymouth. His father gets up at three in the morning to drive him to Leeds each Saturday.

Chaperone Joy Cooke's son Leon, 13, has already been cast as the fourth Billy. He's been living in London with the other boys - in what's known as the Billy House - for several months. "It's great, all the kids get on well together. It's one big happy family," she says.

Leon, who's been dancing since he was two, was an associate with Birmingham Royal Ballet before joining the show. Like all the youngsters, he displays boundless enthusiasm for the role. "When we used to go home after school, he'd still be dancing along the aisle of the train," she recalls.

The North-East may not have provided a Billy Elliot, but the cast does feature actors from the area. Tim Healy has the leading role of Billy's miner dad, who's not exactly pleased on learning of his son's dancing ambitions.

"There was some interest in me for the film but I didn't go up for it. I thought Gary Lewis, who played the part, was brilliant. I'm playing him as a Geordie not a Scotsman, so it's very different to the film, the same story but more room to develop," he says.

"I'm not really a big lover of musicals but this is a very meaty subject, not a case of just singing and dancing. There's a very nice play there as well with a political message about the miners' appalling treatment by Thatcher. It's one of the hardest-hitting musicals I've come across."

The production reunites Healy with fellow actors from Newcastle's Live Theatre, Trevor Fox and Joe Caffrey. Both have been connected with Billy Elliot since the first rehearsed reading of Hall's script - then called Dancer - at Live six years ago.

Fox was in the film, in a different role to the boxing coach he plays on stage. "I remember I burst out laughing when Lee said Elton John had contacted him about making it a musical. I thought he was joking," he says. "But, if possible, it's even more moving that the film."

Caffrey appeared in Hall's last West End play, Cooking With Elvis.

"We had a great run, although the budget was about a fiftieth of Billy Elliot. There were more people at the read-through of the musical than you get in Live Theatre," says Caffrey.

"But the kind of work ethic they have at Live is very similar to here. Director Stephen Daldry is not sitting in the stalls with a megaphone shouting directions, he's very hands-on as a director."

Fox sees a West End production as "a totally different world", and for the three North-East youngsters sharing the role of Debbie this is a very new world. They're living in the Billy House, with six other children and two house mothers, in London while rehearsing and appearing in the show. A tutor gives them lessons at the house.

"I've been going to stage school since I was eight," says Emma Hudson, 11, from Prudhoe. "We do little shows with singing and dancing for the parents, but this is my first really big thing."

She and nine-year-old Brooke Havana Bailey, from Sunderland, are sharing the role with Lucy Stephenson, from South Shields.

Brooke's appeared in shows at the Customs House, South Shields and talent shows. "Nothing compares to something as big as Billy Elliot," she say s. "When I was little, I always dreamt it would be like this."

And Emma echoes all the Billy Elliot The Musical youngsters when she says: "To be on stage is like a dream come true."

* Billy Elliot The Musical is previewing at Victoria Palace Theatre in London before its mid-May opening night. Box office 0870 895 5577.