A DANCER from Bicester is to take to the stage in London after securing a role in the opera Anna Nicole.

Leanne Blossom, 20, is in rehearsals for the Covent Garden show, which opens next month at the Royal Opera House.

The opera is about the life of Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, her marriage to octogenarian billionaire oil tycoon J Howard Marshall and her death in 2007 aged 39.

Former Cooper School pupil Miss Blossom, from Fair Close, will be one of six dancers in the show.

She said: “It’s my first professional job. My agent sent three of us for an audition. I was the only one to get a part.

“I’m really pleased as I didn’t get many parts while I was at college, so it was quite nice to get this.”

Miss Blossom said she had also taken up singing since she started studying at Urdang Academy, in London, in 2008.

She has now got her sights on a part in a musical such as Hairspray.

Miss Blossom’s grandmother, Jeannette Upton, of Longfields, Bicester, said: “We are thrilled to bits for her and just so proud.

“It’s something she has always wanted and she has worked so hard to get there.”

Miss Blossom studied performing arts at Abingdon and Witney College, and in 2008 won student of the year in the department.

She also had dance lessons with Jam, at Southwold School, and the Courtyard, in Launton Road, and Dance Connexions in Wallingford.