IF you see The Witches in all their bald-headed, be-gloved grotesqueness today or tomorrow at York Theatre Royal, give a special round of applause to wardrobe supervisor Chloe Bower.

This specialist in prosthetic make-up effects has designed the costumes and prosthetics for director Kate Veysey's production of the fantastical Roald Dahl story, adapted for the stage by David Wood, wherein an unnamed boy is taken in by his grandmother when his parents are killed in a car accident.

On a seaside holiday, they stay in a shabbily grand hotel that, unbeknown to them, happens to be hosting the annual meeting of the world’s witches, whose fiendish Grand High Witch has an evil scheme to rid the world of all children.

Chloe, 25, is leading a team of volunteers whose task is to apply the coven of witches' wart-covered bald caps and fake toes and a terrifying face for Molly Levitt's Grand High Witch for today's 2.30pm and 7pm performances by the 16 to 19 age group on the main-house stage.

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Warts and all: Chloe Bower's prosthetics for The Witches

Chloe trained in costume and textiles at the University of Huddersfield, and "though I didn't study prosthetics there, after college I was really interested in doing that side of it with wigs and prosthetics to create the full package," she says. "So I then went to Leeds City College to do a one-year course in 2014.

"It's quite specialised work with a lot of different elements to it: there aren't a lot of make-up artists that do full prosthetics and it's great that I've landed here at the Theatre Royal and I'm now doing the prosthetics on this show."

Chloe's tasks for The Witches have taken in creating the Grand High Witch's mask, the other witches' bald caps, covered with warts, veins and moles, and the display witch with stumpy toes, really long fingernails and blue frothing saliva. "A bit of bicarbonate of soda and food colouring will create that effect," she reveals.

Chloe, who grew up in Batley and now lives in Morley, has been working on The Witches since June. "It's been quite a difficult process and different from normal in that we have a very low budget, so for the witches' caps we've had to use polystyrene heads coated in 20 layers of PVA glue to create a hard shell," she says. "On to that I've then layered coloured Latex to add all the details."

Working in tandem with designer Gem Greaves, Chloe's design for the Grand High Witch's mask took in everything from plastic to spirit gum, tissue to "many, many layers of Latex".

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Molly Levitt's Grand High Witch and the witches in York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre's The Witches. Picture: Dave Lee

She is working with youth theatre director Kate Veysey for the first time but is no stranger to productions at York Theatre Royal. "I'm a freelance wardrobe assistant, working on main-house productions, and I worked here as the wardrobe mistress for Brideshead Revisited earlier this yea," she says. "I made some of the costumes for that show, and I also did the costumes for Pilot Theatre's production of E M Forster's The Machine Stops in The Studio."

Chloe worked backstage during Wicked's run at the Bradford Alhambra Theatre and will be doing so there again for Mary Poppins. "This winter I'll be supervising the wardrobe for the Billy Pearce panto at the Alhambra and that'll be the first big panto that I'll be in control of with a team under me," she says.

Looking to the future, Chloe has ambitions to expand her portfolio. "I'd absolutely love to do more make-up and prosthetics for TV and film companies," she says. "It's very different work to theatre, as the focus is close-up."

York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre presents The Witches, York Theatre Royal, 2.30pm and 7pm, today and tomorrow. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk