IN a tale fit for the stage, a budding North Yorkshire actress has swooped in to help two musical productions that found themselves without a stage manager.

Beth Connolly, of Croft-on-Tees, came to the rescue of the Richmond Operatic Society’s The Pirates of Penzance after the original stage manager was taken ill.

Ms Connolly is working hard behind the scenes at the amateur production which opened at The Georgian Theatre Royal on Wednesday.

Not content with helping one production, 18-year-old Ms Connolly also agreed to stage manage Sale Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s version of The Mikado which opens at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester next week.

Ms Connolly has family links with both productions, with her father performing in Richmond and her aunt acting in the Manchester show, and said she was happy to help out.

She said: “I didn’t expect to be doing both almost at the same time.

“But my auntie Stella said they needed a stage manager at short notice and so I jumped at the chance.”

Ms Connolly comes from a family of Gilbert and Sullivan fans and says she is the latest in a long line to embrace the musicals.

She said: “My grandmother and my great-grandfather were also G&S fanatics, so I’m proud to be the first of the fourth generation to carry on the tradition.

“It’ll be intense doing both, but exciting.

“I think Gilbert & Sullivan is a bit like Marmite – it splits audiences into those who like it and those who don’t. I’m a big fan – we all are in this family.”

Ms Connolly wants to become a professional actor in the future and is applying to drama schools after successfully completing her A levels last year.

She said: “It’s a wonderful but not an easy industry to crack, so my ambition is simply to be acting and working; to discover and practise all sorts of different styles and types of performance and production throughout my career.”