Strictly's Layton Williams reveals how he got his West End start as Billy Elliot when he was 10 - and danced himself out of a council estate and onto the BBC hit show

• e-mail

Tuesday of his salsa week on Strictly Come Dancing, and the breakout star of the show, Layton Williams, 29, with his cut-glass cheekbones and boot-camp body, has just finished an impressive run-through of Saturday’s routine. 

‘It’s a bit rough now,’ he says as he takes a seat, an opinion that contradicts every lift, turn, suggestive swivel and synchronised spin I have just witnessed.

We’re in a dance studio in a municipal leisure centre in South London, with a faint smell of council bleach lingering in the hallways. 

It’s not far from where Williams got his first major acting break after auditioning for the lead in Billy Elliot The Musical, aged 10, in 2005. 

Eighteen years on, Williams is fully immersed in Strictly world. His salsa went on to score 39 points out of 40, the fastest such a high total has been set for 13 years; he also scooped the earliest 10 in the show’s history for his cha-cha-cha; and his odds of winning (5/1 at the time of writing) keep tumbling.

Layton Williams, 29, grew up on an estate in Bury, Greater Manchester. His first major acting break came at the age of 10 after auditioning for the lead in Billy Elliot The Musical in 2005. Jumper, Tods

‘Obviously Layton is a brilliant dancer. I love him, I’ve worked with him, he’s one of my treasures and he is sensational,’ Dame Arlene Phillips, one of Strictly’s original judges, told Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘And right now, it looks like gosh, he’s got to win.’

No pressure. ‘I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into,’ says Williams. ‘People would say, “Oh, it’s a lot. Buckle up.” But I was like, whatever, how much is this going to be?’ He soon learned. 

‘Every week, I get a little bit of a wobble on Monday because this is so intense and it’s such a contrast to the week before,’ he tells me. 

Yet contrary to many rumours, the behind-the-scenes bonhomie couldn’t be chummier. ‘They are all such huns. And that’s just not me saying it. We do all really get on. 

'Angela Scanlon is such a beautiful person, and she can sense when I’m maybe having a bit of a wobble.

'We have lots of voice notes back and forth between each other. I have to say, we’ve got each other’s backs. We’re there for each other.’

Saturday night primetime TV gives audiences a sense of ownership over its stars. ‘It’s an attachment,’ he says, ‘and in some cases it’s obviously lovely and in some cases not so much. But you have to drown it out and think of the bigger picture.’

Like few contestants before him, Williams has proved a lightning rod for online chatter. Each week an explosive debate erupts.

How much professional training has he had? Why didn’t Nikita Kuzmin [his Strictly dance professional] get a female partner?

What’s he doing dolled up as Rizzo from Grease? Why is he so proud of himself?

Layton scooped the earliest 10 in Strictly' s history for his cha-cha-cha. Top and trousers, Daniel W Fletcher. Shoes, Christian Louboutin

Layton dancing the Tango with Strictly partner Nikita Kuzmin. The pair scored an impressive 36 points for their performance on Saturday 28 October 

How much professional training has he had?

A source told The Mail on Sunday that his fellow contestants were ‘frustrated’ that Williams was already ‘as good as or even better than his professional partner’. 

‘One thing I would like to make clear is, was I Billy Elliot or did I play Billy Elliot?’ he says. 

‘Honestly, if I’d auditioned for the Royal Ballet School they would have laughed me out of the room. 

'You’ve heard it from Shirley [Ballas, the Strictly judge]. My feet don’t point. These hips don’t turn out. I’m a fake-it-till-you-make-it type. 

'That’s how I got Billy Elliot. I was in a show where this boy is supposed to go to the Royal Ballet School. 

'I used to beat myself up about it – why am I not good at ballet? I’ve always just been able to get it to the point I need to. There’s so much noise around that stuff but I know I’ve made the right decision.’

Staring out of the window, Williams mentions the irony of this studio being in Elephant and Castle, where he auditioned for Billy Elliot. 

As the first person of colour to act the role, he says, ‘I always felt like I had to work hard, especially when I rocked up to my first audition and realised not a lot of boys look like me.’ 

How did that feel? ‘It was just different. In school, there were so many people from so many beautiful places, so you never were the black boy. At theatre school, I was suddenly the odd one out, and I’d never been that.’

As the first person of colour to act the role of Billy Elliot in the West End musical, Layton always felt like he had to work hard. Top and trousers, Daniel W Fletcher. Shoes, Christian Louboutin

He grew up on an estate in Bury, in Greater Manchester, parts of which rank among the most deprived areas in England. He’s disagreed with his mum about the ‘estate’ detail recently. 

‘You know that meme of Victoria Beckham?’ he says, referring to the episode in the Beckham documentary where David and Victoria gently squabble over their working-class credentials, only for David to point out his wife used to be driven to school in a Rolls-Royce. ‘It was like that, in reverse,’ he laughs. 

‘I saw a lot of things that kids my age probably shouldn’t be seeing, so I’ve always had this tough skin. There was always craziness happening around us. At times it was a little bit s**t, you know?’

Williams is the second eldest of nine siblings between his mum Michelle and his father, whose family is Jamaican. 

Though his parents split up when Williams was small, he says his father was present while stepdads would come and go: ‘It was what it was.’ 

When he talks happily about diversity and his past in his Mancunian accent, he projects the air of a Russell T Davies character. 

There is something particularly Queer As Folk about memories of his 18th birthday, celebrated in Manchester’s Gay Village when someone threw a pint at his mum. 

‘She was so drunk, she was like, “A lesbicon just threw a glass at me.” I was like, “Mum, lesbian, please.”’

Layton describes his first foray into acting and singing under Bury theatre hero Carol Godby as 'escapism' 

Like Billy Elliot himself, Williams found solace in the performing arts under Bury theatre hero Carol Godby. 

‘When I fell into acting classes and started doing the singing, it was escapism. Whatever was going on at home didn’t really matter. This was somewhere I could express myself. As soon as I step on stage, all of that noise disappears.’

Moving to London aged 12 to do Billy Elliot was a challenge. ‘London? A musical? The West End? What’s that? I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I’d love to sit here and say it was my dream to be in the West End, to be on stage, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know what that dream was until it became my reality.’ 

From the moment he stepped out on stage in 2007, he had found a new home. ‘I was just a kid. All these people talking about a black boy playing Billy Elliot? I was just living my best life. I was earning £200 a week! Couldn’t believe it.’

Williams spent his first Billy Elliot pay cheque in predictable Viv Nicholson ‘spend, spend, spend’ Northern style. ‘I was always in Harrods, me. I should’ve been responsible, but whenever my mum came down, I was like, let’s go to Harrods! What would a boy from a council estate do? He would go to Harrods!’

During his Billy Elliot run, he scored his first television break on the escapist BBC drama Beautiful People. 

This introduced him to gay arts royalty: playwright Jonathan Harvey, singer/songwriter Dan Gillespie Sells, who composed the score, and showrunner Simon Doonan, on whose life story – from camp child in the UK suburbs to creative director of Barneys, New York – the show was based. 

Later, Gillespie Sells and director Jonathan Butterell cast him in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the West End hit about a schoolboy who wants to present his feminine self, a tear-jerking triumph-over-adversity musical.

While performing in Billy Elliot, Layton scored his first television break on the escapist BBC drama Beautiful People. L-R: Sleeveless top, Daniel W Fletcher; trousers and sunglasses, Tod’s and top and boots, Lanvin; skirt, Le Kilt

As with Billy Elliot, Williams recognised the tale. In London, he had been an out gay teenager; being among some of the staff at Billy Elliot was the first time he’d seen any positive representation of gay people. 

‘Until I moved to London, I didn’t understand happy gay relationships. [I hadn’t] seen gay people thriving.

'I had an amazing teacher called Damien who taught us choreography. Matt, who was our gymnastics teacher, was such a queen.’ 

In 2022 Williams replaced Jack Whitehall as the lead in the edgy BBC sitcom Bad Education, about a teacher who breaks most of the establishment rules.

While on Beautiful People he met perhaps his most important role model, a script editor called Maria who ended up taking Williams in to live with her and her partner Val when he returned to London to film season two.

He was 16 and ‘they basically brought me up... I never went back’.

Before he met these positive role models, he says he would be careful, and warn others not to camp it up overly on the tube on the way to school. 

‘I used to care so much about what others thought about me. People wouldn’t know this now, they’d just think, oh, he’s full of himself, this cocky thing. Stop camping it up, they’d say. 

The first time Layton saw any positive representation of gay people was when he moved to London and found himself among the staff at Billy Elliot. Blazer, trousers, hat and shoes, Emporio Armani

'But there was a time when I had to fully squish and hide that and I was not in the least bit proud, you know? 

'So now, after all these years, being the adult I am, I’m like, f**k you lot! I’d rather die and be kicked out of this show than [live like] that. Because I’ve been there. I’ve got that T-shirt.’

This is why Strictly matters so much to him.

‘I’m getting the most beautiful messages from parents and teachers of young children,’ he says. 

‘I got one yesterday about this kid called Joseph. I think he was about four or five years old. He would wear his pink watch at home but would never leave the house or go to school in it. 

'And his mum said, “You know, watching you and seeing how sometimes you’re super-flamboyant, how you present as whatever you want to present as, he went to school in his little pink watch, and he came back with the biggest smile on his face.”’

Williams replicates the beam. ‘These are the stories that I need to concentrate on. It’s just so much bigger than me dancing on a TV show at this point. It’s giving people a little beacon of hope in these stressful times.’

It was while explaining the Strictly gig to his new boyfriend, who is not in the entertainment industry, that Williams realised what a life-changing experience it was about to become. (He won’t name the boyfriend ‘because I haven’t hard-launched him yet’, he says.)

Since joining Strictly, Layton has received messages from parents and teachers of young children who have found a role model in him. L-R: Top and trousers, Daniel W Fletcher. Shoes, Christian Louboutin and blazer, gilet, kilt, socks and boots, Dior

‘I had to tell him, “Just so you know, I’m about to go into one of the biggest shows in the UK, so things might get a little bit crazy. Are you down with that?”’ 

Much to Williams’ appreciation, he was. ‘He stuck with it, with the madness, which has been really nice.’

They met at Glastonbury in the summer (‘both of our firsts’), when their eyes locked over the dancefloor at The NYC Downlow, an elaborate gay disco built in the furthest corner of the festival site. 

‘Perfect time, perfect place, really magical. Honestly, the memories there. The most unbelievable place ever.

‘We’d travel an hour and a half across the festival just to find each other,’ he recalls.

‘I remember after Elton John – I mean, Elton! Unreal! – and I was with my bestie Liam. He was like, “What are you doing? Let’s just go back to NYC Downlow.” And I was like, “I need to go and find him.”’ 

The only problem: Williams’ phone had died.

‘I had to go all the way back to my tent, hoping that I could find him, charge my phone.’ Once it was fully charged, they finally met up. ‘And we were both like, “Oh my god, let’s spend this last night together.” It was really beautiful.’

Layton met his boyfriend, who doesn't work in the entertainment industry, at Glastonbury earlier this year 

A framed print of the Glastonbury site now hangs on the living room wall of his new home in Dulwich. The mortgage, signed last October, is another first for Williams. 

‘I think I was the first person in my family [to get one],’ he says proudly. ‘I worked really hard for it. I nearly gave up on it as well because so much goes on that I was so not clued up on. I just thought I could go in, say, “I want that one,” and that was it.’

Fortunately, Maria and Val had instilled in him the value of saving. ‘They drilled it into me: try and get on the ladder. The first few years of me touring and having fun, I wasn’t saving. I was living pay cheque to pay cheque, because I was a teenager – and why not? 

'But when I was doing Jamie and I was earning good money, I thought, you know what? I’ve got an opportunity here. I can make something of myself. I can have a place that I can call my own, something to work towards.’

Williams is not yet 30 but he’s packed a lot of living into those years. When I ask about his first love, he thinks for a second. ‘I would say I’ve had a few moments up and down. I’ve definitely had my heartbreaks as well.

'I look back at my last relationship with fond memories. But some of my exes? I mean, I’ve got a long list. Lol. One thing I would say is that it’s a positive to have a lot of exes. It means you’re committed!’

Later this year he’ll be back in the BBC’s Bad Education reboot, writing for the show as well as starring in it. 

He’s a man in demand, but his dance partner Kuzmin recently offered sensible advice for his exploding career. ‘He said, “You want it, you don’t need it.” That feels like a good way to look at things.’

Nor does he dwell much on his shot at winning Strictly because, in one sense, just by being on it he has won already. 

Odds stacked against him as a kid, he has turned into the exact role model he looked for when he was young and didn’t see on TV.

‘That’s what’s so nice about doing Strictly,’ he says. ‘It feels like a massive hug for your career.’

• Watch Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Saturday evenings. Bad Education returns to BBC Three and BBC iPlayer this Christmas.