This Bond isn’t a secret agent or a member of an all-girl classical music outfit – she’s a journalist and actor who’s about to step out in her latest role in the heart of Robin Hood country.

Dawn, who is entertainments editor for the Newark Advertiser, has been a reporter for the last 13 years and treading the boards for even longer.

Her first performance was aged just six, in From Then Till Now, with the Kaleidoscope Children’s Theatre Group.

Twenty-seven years on she’s taking the role of Friar Tuck in the Newark Community Pantomime production of Robin Hood and his Merry Men Behaving Badly – a rather uncouth version of the traditional tale!

The Friar is not one of the leading roles but makes a stand near the end of the panto as he tries to stall the marriage of the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and Maid Marian.

Dawn said: “I like making people laugh – I mostly do comedy. One of my favourite performances was back in 1993 when I played the fat nanny who killed her boss in a swimming pool in Alan Ayckbourn’s Man of the Moment.

“I had to appear complete with flippers and goggles – that was one of my best audience reactions.”

Her credits include performances for the Newark Amateur Operatic Society, the Argent Theatre Newark and the Robin Hood Theatre Group, Averham.

The community panto group is making a return after a two-year break and is enjoying something of a success in its aims, to encourage new young actors to step forward into the spotlight – and raise money for local groups.

This year the Newark High School Family of Schools and The Newark Hospital League of Friends will benefit from the show.

Rehearsals are under way and tickets are on sale now for the show, which opens on December 17.

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