Billy Elliot The Musical

JOE CAFFREY

Joe is delighted to be back in his second stint in Billy Elliot the Musical, having played Tony when the show opened in 2005. Born in the shipbuilding town of Wallsend, Tyneside’s industrial heritage was very much the background to Joe’s formative years. His father had worked at Swan Hunter’s Shipyards (until made redundant), and both of his grandfathers were miners. The Caffreys had worked underground since they arrived from Ireland in the 1850s, and his mother’s family, the Murrays, had similarly mined the Northumberland and Durham coalfields for generations. Joe’s grandfather, Ned Murray, was also an active Trade Unionist and Labour politician – as NUM Treasurer for the Northumberland Mechanics and as a District and County Councillor.

Although Joe himself chose to become an actor, during the 84/85 strike he was a member of an a capella band, The Workey Tickets, who did many fund raising benefit gigs for the striking miners and their families, culminating in the massive ‘Heroes’ concert at the Albert Hall.

Joe trained at LAMDA.

His theatre credits include: Love’s Labours Lost, We Are the People (Shakespeare’s Globe), Cooking With Elvis (Whitehall Theatre/National Tour), Charlie’s Trousers, Dirty Nets, Cooking With Elvis, NE1, Close The Coalhouse Door, Bandits (Live Theatre Company), Keepers of The Flame (RSC/Live Theatre), Studs (Hull Truck), Noir, Beauty and The Beast, Out of The Blue, Trouble Under Foot (Northern Stage), Black and White Shorts (Paines Plough), Births Marriages and Deaths (Nuffield – Southampton).

Television Credits include: The Bill (semi-regular), Distant Shores, Catherine Cookson’s Colour Blind, Quayside, The Last Musketeer, Aint Misbehaving, Soldier Soldier (All ITV), Doctors (semi regular), Clay, Byker Grove (regular), Attachments, Holby City, Badger, Hetty Wainthrope Investigates, Spender (All BBC).

Film Credits include: Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason (Working Title), The One and Only (Assassin Films).