Billy Elliots to get £15,000 arts bursaries

By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent Published: 1:13PM GMT 08 March 2010

Trent Kowalik personification the purpose of Billy Elliot Photo: AP

Some 40 internships opposite the humanities should be enabled by the �600,000 Department for Culture, Media and Sport scheme.

It was launched by Gordon Brown and Margaret Hodge, the Culture Minister, as Billy Elliot the low-pitched distinguished the fifth birthday in the West End.

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Mr Brown said: "This appropriation will assistance give a little of the means immature artists the additional await and profitable experience they need to get a feet in the doorway of the beautiful industries and assistance them on their approach to realising their full potential.

"It is a critical progress for a little of the good destiny actors, artists and musicians who might differently have slipped by the net."

Ms Hodge, who last week criticised the humanities for carrying a "closed-shop culture" where "networking and nepotism open doors", pronounced she longed for to have the story of Billy Elliot about a miner"s son who wants to be a ballet dancer "happen in reality".

She added: "There is no necessity of informative and beautiful bent in this country.

"But violation in to the business, and branch bent in to a pursuit or career can be unequivocally formidable unless you come from a affluent or well-connected background.

"This commander intrigue aims to assistance emanate a turn personification margin of event so that genuine bent in the humanities can get through, in any case of mercantile barriers."

The two-year scheme, that starts in September, will be managed by the Jerwood Foundation.