Norton performer Scott Garnham is rapidly making a big name for himself on the North Yorkshire amateur circuit. In October, he is to top the bill in Malton & Norton Amateur Operatic Society's first production of Half A Sixpence. Scott, 16, will play Kipps alongside fellow Norton performer Laurie Scarth, 15, as Ann, in Robert Readman's second show for the Malton amateurs after last year's Oliver!

Singer, dancer and actor Scott has never had any doubts about wanting to become an all-round professional performer and his CV to date stands him in good stead.

His debut was in Malton panto at nine and his first 'grown-up' role with the group was in Brigadoon in 1998. Most recently he was the Artful Dodger in Oliver!

Further afield however, the teenager has appeared twice in Joseph at the Grand Opera House in York and was also in Honk! in Scarborough, also appearing in the original London cast recording of that show.

Latterly, he has played the leads in Ryedale Youth Theatre productions and this month he is travelling to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to reprise his April lead role in Crazy For You.

In February he was in Shipton Theatre Club's Bye Bye Birdie.

Scott's leading lady in Half A Sixpence, Laurie Scarth, also has been in a string of Malton musicals and pantomimes.

She was in Oliver! last year, played the title role in the panto Aladdin in January and she has danced in pantomime at York Theatre Royal.

The two will team up this time with Malton's Tom Todd, who will be jumping from last year's Fagin to Kipps' eccentric mentor Chitterlow, alongside local shop apprentice buddies Neil Walker, Martin Lettin and Martin Parrott. Sarah Wade, as the haughty Helen, and Carly Zoeller, Sarah Clyde, Lisa-Marie Wade and Melissa Swindell as the shopgirls, will add more of the youthful spice which Malton audiences have come to expect.

Veteran Pickering character actor Allen Hall will provide a sombre touch as the tyrannical shop owner Shalford while Diana Morgan and Margaret Lukey will play the comically bombastic Mrs Walsingham and Mrs Botting.

Other principal parts in the big-cast production, which will boast a strong local chorus, are to be played by Neil Foster, Richard Nortcliffe, Annette Bray, Laura Barker, Rob King and Harry Bray.

- Half A Sixpence will be staged in the Milton Rooms, Malton, from October 8 to 13. Tickets will be on sale this autumn.