Ex-Marine produces family of Billy Elliots

MOST men dream of fathering a World Cup football squad but Ian Potts has bred a male corps de ballet.

Not only are all four Potts lads keen ballet dancers, three of them have monopolised the part of Boy in hit Christmas show The Snowman since it opened four years ago.

"James, now 14, did it in years one and two," said Mr Potts. "Martin, 11, was last year's Boy and Samuel, nine, opens on Thursday.

We're keeping little Daniel, seven, in a darkened cupboard at home to stunt his growth ready for 2002."

James started the family tradition when he was four after his mother, Carol, entered him for a dance routine in The Twinkletoes, a Blackpool pantomime .

He was hooked and pestered his parents for dance lessons until they enrolled him at Barbara Jackson Ballet School near their home in Bispham, terminal of Blackpool Promenade's trams.

Soon Martin had to have a go.

When Samuel came along Carol and Ian, thought why not?

"No way was Daniel going to be left behind by his brothers," said Mr Potts, a former Royal Marine who has never seen a live ballet performance.

James is in his second year at the Arts Educational School in Tring, Hertfordshire; Martin is at White Lodge, the Royal Ballet's junior school in Richmond where Samuel hopes to join him next year; while Daniel is appearing in Cinderella at Blackpool's Grand Theatre.

James was bullied at Moor Park Junior School in Bispham. He said: "It ended with a boy punching my head against a wall. After that I used to go to ballet in my football kit and change when I got there. It didn't stop me wanting to dance, nothing else gives me such a buzz inside. I do get homesick being a boarder, the same as Martin at White Lodge. I telephone him at least twice a week and we text all the time. As we live so far away we can't get home for a day's visit, though I'm lucky I get weekend breaks whereas Martin doesn't."

In the pre-Billy Elliot days, said Mr Potts, whose two elder sons James and Martin auditioned for the main part of Billy, played in the film by award-winning Jamie Bell, James came in for a lot of bullying at school. "I said don't come running when someone calls you names, but if someone lands you one, see me before you get stuck in.

"I was prepared to teach him a bit of Marine technique, but it never came to that."

Mr Potts, 50, works for Blackpool's Social Services and his wife Carol, 47, is a fulltime mother. The family finances are "in the low income bracket", she said.

For now, James and Martin will join Carol for Samuel's opening night this week at the Peacock Theatre while Mr Potts cheers Daniel on in Cinderella.

"There's one advantage in breeding the Dancing Potts," says Mr Potts. "It looks like free theatre tickets for the rest of our life."

_The Snowman opens at the Peacock Theatre, London, on 13 December and runs until 13 January.

Copyright 2001
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