NORTON musical actress Lauren Hood is to return to the Grand Opera House pantomime in York this winter.

After playing the lead in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs last Christmas, when she had to cover her blonde hair with a dark wig, this time Lauren will star in the title role in Cinderella from December 12 to January 4.

“I’m thrilled to be invited back to do the panto at York, to play Cinderella,” she says. “There’s such a wonderful family atmosphere at the Grand Opera House; I had a great time last year and I’m very much looking forward to having my own Fairy Godmother.”

Lauren, 27, will be joined in Simon Barry’s cast by stalwart music and theatre star Anita Harris as The Baroness; Emmerdale’s Stuart Wade as Buttons; Any Dream Will Do’s Rob McVeigh as Dandini; Last Of The Summer Wine’s Tom Owen as Baron Hardup and pop duo Scooch’s Russ Spencer and Caroline Barnes as The Prince and Fairy Godmother respectively.

Lauren was born and raised in Norton, near Malton, where she attended the Kirkham Henry Performing Arts Centre and performed in the Malton and Norton Operatic Society from the age of six.

After studying at York College, she was awarded a scholarship to Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, where she graduated with first-class honours and won the Gyearbour Asante Award for Acting.

Lauren made her professional debut as Carrie Pipperidge in the West End production of Carousel, for which she was nominated for a TMA award, and she appeared at the Grand Opera House as Frenchy, the pink-haired beauty school drop-out, in the national tour of Grease in October 2012.

She took the lead role of L.V in Jim Cartwright’s The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at Hull Truck Theatre in August 2011, played Gabriel in Tim Firth’s The Flint Street Nativity at the same theatre later that year, and played Laura in the British tour of Dreamboats And Petticoats and Martha in the British and international tour of The Secret Garden. In August last year, she performed at the Leeds Grand Theatre as Penny in the national tour of Hairspray.

Lauren is no stranger to the Grand Opera House pantomime. “I danced in a handful of pantos there as a ‘babe’, under the same director, Simon Barry, as now, as it happens,” she says.

Tickets for Cinderella are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york