A young actress with brittle-bone disease will appear on stage in a wheelchair after vowing the show must go on - despite breaking a leg.

Hayley Finch, of Shipley, is confined to a wheelchair most of the time. A simple knock or tumble can leave her with broken bones and since she was born she has suffered a staggering 150 fractures.

But despite everything, brave Hayley, who is ten today and has suffered the crippling condition since birth, is rehearsing hard for her part in the Shipley-based Wilson Centre of Drama and Dance's Music of the Millennium show.

It opens at Bingley Arts Centre on Monday, November 8. The Low Ash First School pupil is appearing as Cagey Joe, the boxing manager in a version of Bugsy Malone. It's a role which involves singing and speaking and Hayley's in the finale.

Hayley's mother, Carol Finch, of Gaisby Mount, said: "She had the pot off last week but the next day was just walking into class at school when she felt her leg click as it fractured again.

"The leg was hurting her so she had to have a pot put back on. She's very upset about being in a wheelchair for the show but is determined not to let it spoil anything.

"She's very brave and even if she was in hospital I think she'd persuade them to let her out so she could still appear.

"Everyone at the drama school's been brilliant. She's been going to all the rehearsals but they don't see the wheelchair and accept her as her.''

Hayley said: "I'm really looking forward to the show. I'd like to be an actress or newsreader when I leave school. I'm determined to still be in it, even after breaking my leg again.''

Centre principal Gordon Wilson said: "I think she's incredibly brave and a real inspiration - she's a smashing kid with a real zest for life and what she lacks in stature she certainly makes up for in spirit.''

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