A SILSDEN student who has secured a job on a hit CBBC show has spoken of how her time at the Northern School of Art has allowed her to embrace her love of theatre and costume design. Joanna Rowling, 21, has just graduated with First Class Honours in her BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation with Design degree.

She secured a job working on CBBC show The Dumping Ground before she even graduated.

As a big theatre fan, Joanna’s final project featured costumes she created for a stage adaptation of The Borrowers set in the 1950s, and says she found the opportunities organised by course staff for students to get backstage work experience really useful.

This included a stint on the outdoor spectacular and historical epic production, Kynren.

She enthused: “I also volunteered at theatres in my summer holidays and worked on an indie film which involved leading a team of fellow students and making 14 pairs of 1950s dungarees.”

One of the highlights of the course for Joanna was the hat-making module as “millinery is a key skill to learn for the costume design industry.”

Having enjoyed the course, Joanna’s advice to future students is to “Enjoy it! It goes really quickly.”