SEAMSTRESS Janet Catlow went for a look behind the scenes at a top London West End musical and ended up helping to save the show.

Janet, of Ash Lane, Great Harwood, went to London as the guest of BBC Radio Lancashire producer Harriet Roberts who was making a documentary programme.

The subject was the musical Crazy For You at the Prince Edward Theatre starring Tim Flavin and Helen Way.

Janet, who is wardrobe mistress at Accrington Operatic Society said: "We were chatting backstage with the wardrobe master Duncan Newman when he told us he had a problem.

"Helen Way had fallen ill - and so had her understudy. Duncan said he had to alter the costumes for the second understudy and there was only an hour in which to do it.

"I volunteered to help and he jumped at the offer. It was all very exciting, we worked like beavers. I managed to alter two dresses and we had everything ready just in time for curtain up."

Janet, who runs her own accessory business - JanCraft in Clayton-le-Moors - with husband Bert and son Stephen, 30, added: "It was nice to see when the show started that all the clothes we had altered fitted the understudy extremely well.

"I've been wardrobe mistress at the operatic society for 14 years and keep asking someone else to take on the job but they insist that I'm perfect. I "It's going to be even harder now to persuade anyone else to take over."

Producer Harriet Roberts said: "It was a real piece of behind the scenes drama. In fact it was so good people might even think we stage managed it.

"But we didn't. It happened just as we recorded it."

Listeners to BBC Radio Lancashire can hear how Janet came to the rescue when the documentary Crazy For You is broadcast on BBC Radio Lancashire between 3pm and 4pm on Christmas Day and 11am and 12noon on Boxing Day.

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