Boys line up at Royal Ballet School

Billy Elliot, the film about a miner's son who becomes a ballet dancer, is truly changing the face of classical dance.

Two years after the film's release, the Royal Ballet School has, for the first time in its 76-year history, accepted more boys than girls. This year's intake at both the Royal Ballet's junior and senior schools will be made up of 14 boys and 10 girls and, like the film's hero, Nicholas Jones, 11, from Woodbridge in Suffolk has won a place at White Lodge - the school's junior section for 11 to 16-year-olds.

Nicholas, who will be joining his older brother Alexander, 16, at the school this September, said: "My friends are fine about me doing ballet but there's one boy at school who takes the mick out of me calling me 'ballet boy' or 'girl pants' but I don't take any notice of him."

The new influx of boys has meant the number of male dormitories at the schools in west London has had to be increased and new housemasters are being recruited. Gailene Stock, director of the Royal Ballet School, said the Billy Elliot effect was clearly a factor. She said: "There has been a significant increase in the numbers of boys who want full-time training and are willing to take on ballet as a vocation."