THE KING and I will be arriving on stage at Venue Cymru next month. 

Helen George, best known as Trixie in the hit BBC One series Call The Midwife, will play Anna Leonowens, a widow from Victorian England who has travelled to Bangkok to teach English to the King’s many children.

The King and I is the greatest musical from the golden age of musicals – with one of the finest scores ever written including Whistle a Happy Tune and Shall We Dance.

Speaking ahead of her Llandudno performance, Helen said: "I’d been wanting to do a musical for a while and I was waiting for the right one to come along and just couldn’t say no. It’s just such a classical musical theatre part."

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Helen's first job after drama college was in the ensemble of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White in 2004. She has since sung at the BBC’s VE Day 75th anniversary commemoration and on the cast album of Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.

In 2015, Helen took part in Strictly Come Dancing. She finished in sixth place with her dance partner Aljaz Skorjanec.

Asking how she feels about dancing to the show's climactic song Shall We Dance? Helen said: "When we do this incredible dance I wear this incredible dress, I’m as big as a house. In the rehearsal room everybody has had to get out of the way. I lift up the skirt and drag scripts and tea cups with me along the way.

"It weighs 10 pounds and it’s uncomfortable but this was the life of a Victorian woman.”

Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I returns to the UK following its critically-acclaimed sold out season at The London Palladium.

It will run at Venue Cymru between March 7 and March 11. Readers can book tickets via the Venue Cymru website or telephone the Box Office on 01492 872000.

*Helen George will play the role of Anna at the Wednesday to Saturday performances. She will not perform on Tuesday, March 7.