Anne Hegerty will be swapping The Chase's TV studio for the stage over the Christmas period as she reprises her role as The Fairy Rose in Scarborough Spa's production of Beauty and the Beast.
The exciting news was announced earlier this year on the entertainment venue's official social media page.
Alongside a poster of the show, which also stars actor and presenter Jake Quickenden in the role of Gaston, the caption read: "We are delighted to announce that back by popular demand for Beauty and the Beast will be The Governess, @anne_hegerty!
"Keep your eyes peeled for MORE star names to follow."
Anne's panto career
This isn't the first time Anne has starred in a pantomime. The professional quizzer has an impressive list of shows on her CV, including Grange Theatre's 2014 production of Cinderella, in which she played the Wicked Stepmother.
She also played the Empress of China in a production of Aladdin at the Princess Theatre in Torquay and Carabosse in Middlesbrough Theatre's Sleeping Beauty.
© GettyReflecting on how she started her panto career, Anne revealed that she was contacted by a theatre producer after setting up a Twitter, now X, account.
"I did panto, I was really fairly terrible the first time, I was technically bad, I used to miss cues, so I stumbled through it and then got offered more and I've been doing it ever since," she told the Swindon Advertiser in 2022.
© Getty"I enjoy doing the panto, it's a chance to act and a chance to sing, a chance to act, a chance to be funny more than one gets in The Chase. This year I'm Fairy Flutterby, I'm not strictly a villain, I do turn the Beast into the Beast, but I was only doing it to teach him a lesson."
Anne's life before her big break on The Chase
Before becoming a household name thanks to her ruthless television alter-ego, The Governess, on The Chase, Anne worked as a journalist.
© ITVAfter studying linguistics at university, she did a journalism course before working for various local papers. She later found work as a copy editor, proofreader and ghostwriter, penning two books for American children's author Richard Scarry.
© Ken McKay/ITV/ShutterstockAnne was diagnosed with autism when she was 45. It was a television show about children with autism that prompted her to start researching autism and Asperger syndrome after recognising some of the traits in herself.
Opening up about her life post-diagnosis, she told The Guardian in 2021: "It kind of helped me just reframe everything. I suddenly found myself more sympathetic to others: 'Oh, I see why people expected me to do that, why that little girl said that, why my mum thought this'."
