A WOMAN with no previous acting experience is living a real-life fairy story after being selected to join a professional theatre group when it travels to the Middle East.

Allison McKay will play the role of a fairy in A Midsummernight’s Dream with the newly formed Northern Shakespeare Company when it travels to Dubai this month.

Ms McKay, who had lent the company rehearsal space at her studios at NE Representation in Darlington, was given the role when the troupe found themselves a cast member short.

The play is already creating a stir in the United Arab Emirates as it will be the first time an English language version has been performed.

It will feature in the Dubai version of Hello! magazine and is attracting interest from television stations.

The performance will also feature a recording of the Abbey Junior School choir, which local Dubai schoolchildren will dance to during the play.

Ms McKay said the part she played was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Fairies and involved several lines of dialogue.

She said: “I was originally just allowing NE Representation to be a base for rehearsals and then I got involved in designing the costumes.

“Then in casting, a part came up for the fairy and everybody looked at Allison.

“I’ve not done any acting since school, at first I felt very frightened, but they’re all really lovely.

“The director’s great and I’m quite enjoying it. The cast agreed I should get the award for most improved actor, as I wasn’t an actor to begin with.”

The show is being directed by Jonathan Linsley, who has starred in Pirates of the Caribbean, along with a plethora of television roles.

The performance starts on Wednesday and runs for a week, and Mr Linsley said that, if the show was a success, he hoped to tour the Middle East with it and also put on a performance in the region.

He said: “The kids at Abbey school were fantastic, it really sounds lovely.

“I’m hoping to involve the children in Dubai and the children here in Darlington in some way.

“We really love Darlington and we’re thinking of moving up here we like it so much.”