Superstitious stage folk always tell each other to break a leg for good luck but it is not meant to be taken literally.

Yet that's what Samantha Hill from Menston did when she took a short break from rehearsals with the Ilkley Amateur Operatic Society.

The former Bradford Girls Grammar pupil went to Austria for a skiing holiday during rehearsals for the group's latest opera.

She had been rehearsing for the role of Widow Corney in Lionel Bart's adaptation of the musical Oliver and was set to resume when she got back.

But on her trip she slipped on ice and fractured her leg, forcing her to pull out of the performance less than a month before the curtain was due to go up.

"I'm very disappointed," she said. "They were trying to think of ways of keeping me in the show and adapting the role to use my crutches or a wheelchair. But the stage I would have been playing on is the steepest in Europe and I thought I might have ended up in the orchestra box."

So the Society called on Chrissee Matthews to take over.

Samantha said: "Chrissee will do the part justice. I remember she was congratulating me last year and I told her to keep her fingers crossed because I was going on holiday skiing. I never actually meant it."

Margo Atkinson, society chairman, said: "We are very sad about Sam, she had a lovely character developing and we are very sorry to hear that she can't go through with it.

The show will be staged nightly with a Saturday matinee at the King's Hall, Ilkley, from Tuesday, February 29 to Saturday, March 4. Tickets are available from the Tourist Information Centre, Station Road, Ilkley.

For more information contact (01943) 602319.

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