THE grandson of Scottish showbusiness legend Andy Stewart has won a place in the Royal Ballet.
Harris Beattie, 15, has already tasted the big time performing the title role in Billy Elliot in the West End from 2013 to until earlier this year when he literally outgrew the part.
But now a future in classical ballet beckons for the schoolboy from Cults, Aberdeen.
Harris, who looks very like his famous late grandfather, is a pupil at the Danscentre in Aberdeen, and fellow senior student Jessica Rankine, 16, from Airyhall, Aberdeen, has also won a top honour. She will be going to the Scottish Ballet for tuition.
Karen Berry, of Danscentre, said: "They fought off competition from hundreds of other candidates to secure the coveted places in the Royal Ballet and Scottish Ballet Senior Associate Schemes.
"They start in September this year, travelling every Saturday to London for Harris and to Glasgow for Jessica for tuition by some of the top teachers in the field. This year runs prior to their auditioning year before they apply for full-time training to start in summer 2015.
"Both of them will also be travelling this summer after being invited to perform along with their peers in Auld Lang Syne, a dance tribute to Robbie Burns at English Youth Dance Festival in Nottingham on June 27, and the Tramway, Glasgow, as part of the Commonwealth Dance Festival on July 12.
"They have a great and exciting future."
Harris has had to overcome the loss of his mother, Linsey Stewart, who lost her fight with breast cancer in June 2009 at the age of 48. Harris and his older brother, Alistair, then moved from their family home in Arbroath to live with their aunt and uncle in Aberdeen.
When playing the role of Billy Elliot in London, Harris said: "There is a connection between Billy and I. His mum died when he was young so I know how he feels. My mum loved Billy Elliot the Musical and I'm so happy to be in it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article