JANE Omorogbe knows how to make an entrance.

Yes, it helps that she is a 6ft 2 tall, but there is more: her hair is topped off with flame plaits, her laugh is loud, her smile wider than a half moon.

For four years her name was Rio on Gladiators; then she was chopped in half in Gladiator, the Russell Crowe movie. Now she presents the UK Supermoto series for Channel 4 and test-rides motorbikes for ITV's Pulling Power and writes the Janie's World column for Motorcycle Voyager magazine.

Last week she arrived in York for the first time on - what else - her bike to play Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at the Grand Opera House.

"I've brought my bike with me, a Blackbird...which I think is quite apt," says a laughing Jane, whose African surname comes from her Nigerian father.

"The bike's a Honda 1100cc sports tourer, and though it's a Blackbird, it's actually red...and it's awesome. I'm into my motorsports, so I've had it modified for track days. It turns quicker now!"

You can sense her enthusiasm and her game spirit, characteristics that were apparent at Wednesday's opening performance. She may be the newcomer in Cinderella's cast - so new that she is not on the poster in the winter brochure - but she has settled in quickly, happy in the familiar surroundings of playing the Fairy Godmother.

"At 6ft 2 and fairly brown, I'm not exactly going to play Princess...unless the Prince is 7ft, it's not going to happen as I pretty much dwarf everyone.

"But fairies are extreme, aren't they?! They're either Kylie Minogue or larger than life and I tend to think I'm the larger-than-life type."

Jane has waved the Fairy wand each year since joining Gladiators but until then she had no performing or panto experience from her Hastings childhood. "I don't remember ever going to a panto and I'd never been on stage, never been in a school play, so you can imagine how I felt when I first did a panto in Gladiators. I did Genie of the Lamp, so you can tell I was typecast from there on!"

Typecast maybe, but she has been able to jettison the Gladiators albatross. "I did Cinderella two years ago, playing Fairy Godmother, and at the end I had to come out in Lycra and beat the Ugly Sisters with one of those giant cotton buds! But this year, I don't have to wear Lycra," she says.

"There comes a stage in a woman's life where wearing knickers on stage should be left in the past: the Lycra should be in the loft!".

"I started in Gladiators nine or ten years ago when I was 24, I'm 33 now and I just don't want to be wearing knickers in public view! I don't think it's kind to anyone. You just feel silly being semi-dressed on stage, so I'm somewhat relieved to be in a pretty dress this year - I can eat the Christmas pudding."

She is happy to be tall, with size nine feet to boot, even if there are problems. "Finding tights in my shade and size in York is not easy; tan is light on me, chocolate is too dark, and being over 6ft tall, well...I did eventually find some at Bhs. But there are some good things about being tall: I get to play magical characters and I like to be magical; I get to test-drive bikes and I wouldn't have got on Gladiators if I was impish!"

Gladiators gave Jane her break, albeit by a circuitous route. "It's a long story! I went to do a beauty contest called Miss United Kingdom; I think I was Miss Wessex. I'd had to ride on the back of a motorbike through the night to get there in time - I was working as a driver in the ambulance service in Hastings - and John Anderson, the Scottish referee was on a train when he picked up someone's discarded Sun newspaper with pictures of the 25 finalists.

"He phoned the Sun, asked for my number, phoned me one day and asked me to do the Gladiators' fitness regime," Jane recalls. "I failed, even though I'd always been sporty, but he said he could put me in touch with a guy who could train me and I'd have to be dedicated, so I thought, 'if this is my chance to do something incredible, I'd better grab it'. So I handed in my resignation for my moment of fame and fortune! The ambulance boss said, 'Do you need to see an occupational therapist?'."

Instead, she went to see her bank manager. "I told him I'd just given up my job but I was going to be a Gladiator in six months, and could I have a bank loan, please? The bank said yes, so I must have been convincing!"

Jane trained under Tony Slaney, coach to the British tae kwondo team, and six months later she was Rio the Gladiator. Why Rio? "Don't know. They said, 'Hello, your name is Rio; you don't have a nasty face, so you can't have a bad name like Wolf or Thunder. You have a smiley face, so we want something that conjures carnival'. So it was Rio, which is only three letters, and that's great for signing autographs!"

Her Gladiators days behind her, she is concentrating on presenting and writing (her January column in Motorcycle Voyager will feature her bike travels to York).

She is married to a biker, Bic (alias Paul Graham of New Pantomime Productions), and their love of biking stretched to having their bikes at their wedding and taking them on their honeymoon.

"Biking is exhilarating and it's exciting and it's a buzz; it's all those things you associate with speed and danger, but it's also about pride in biking because I've qualified as an instructor, so I teach it. To me, biking is not just about getting around; that's what a car does," Jane says.

"I love the leathers too. I feel really cool because they match my bike, and when you're a biker, especially a female biker, it gives you an identity. It gives you confidence that when you walk into a room you know someone will talk to you, even if you're on your own."

The writing and the TV presenting is the icing on the cake, a dream come true. "I'm the sort of person who believes in fairies," Jane says. So much so, she plays them.

Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, until January 2.

Box office: 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 10:09 Friday, December 10, 2004