Acting teacher Ally Cox will be making wishes come true for families this half term when she stars as Fairy Muddled in Once Upon A Princess at the Regent Centre.

Ally, who is the Principal of Stagewise Performing Arts, returns to the role for the third time as Once Upon A Princess begins its first ever UK tour in Christchurch on 21 February.

“I’m so excited to be playing Fairy Muddled again,” says Ally, who lives in Christchurch. “Once Upon A Princess is such a magical show and so much fun to be a part of. I’m looking forward to sprinkling my fairy dust and creating some magic for our audiences. We’re going to have a ball!”

Having trained at the London Academy of Live & Recorded Arts, Ally has worked as an actress, singer, voice over artist and voice coach for the past 20 years alongside her passion for training the next generation of performers. She is a specialist acting and audition coach at LeAF Academy, and launched Stagewise in 2000, creating a nurturing and non-competitive environment for young people to learn about the performing arts. Today the school runs a busy timetable of classes from its base at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts, with additional workshops in Wimborne and Christchurch.

“Our students past and present have been incredibly successful in securing acting roles and places at some of the top performing arts colleges in the country, but it’s not often they get the opportunity to see me perform!” reveals Ally, who counts CBeebies presenter and Stagewise patron Justin Fletcher among her best friends after they toured together in Playdays. She has also performed in panto alongside the likes of Matthew Kelly and played the role of Mrs Darling in the Christmas production of Peter Pan at Lighthouse in 2015.

2019 will be a busy year for Ally’s Stagewise students, who perform Seussical, the musical based on the children’s stories of Dr Seuss this summer. “We’re inviting young people to get involved as we begin rehearsing for Seussical and will be offering 3 workshops for free to anybody joining Stagewise this term,”reveals Ally.

In the meantime Ally will be appearing in Once Upon A Princess, from Dorset’s OCD Productions, which opens its nationwide tour at the Regent Centre on 21 February, featuring a soundtrack of top pop hits and musical classics performed by favourite fairytale princesses.