IONICA Adriana has been a body double for Lily Allen in her Our Time pop video, starred in an Australian KFC advert, The Goodest Get Together, and had "blood" pouring from her throat in the horror movie Spiritual Phantoma.

Each year since 2011 she has turned on the Christmas lights in Thirsk, the town where she moved when adopted by a North Yorkshire family at the age of two from a Romanian orphanage.

Now, at the invitation of New Pantomime Productions director Simon Barry, Ionica is making her pantomime debut in York as Witch Blackweed in Jack And The Beanstalk at the Grand Opera House.

"I've moved 17 times in the past two and a half years for work reasons, like going to Australia to two days to do the KFC advert, though I decided to stay for a little longer, and a few months later I went to Romania to do the horror movie.

"On my driver's licence it says I'm Romanian because I was born there, and I definitely drive like a Romanian! It's a really beautiful country with beautiful people."

Over the past few weeks, Ionica has done jobs in Liverpool and Manchester and a short film in Lincoln the week before the pantomime rehearsals began.

Pantomime is a different experience again. "I am hated in this show! I'm going to need counselling afterwards; I've never been booed so much in my life," says Ionica. "I have three or four scared children walking out of every show.

"I hadn't even seen a panto before doing this show, and I can't begin to explain to you the level of noise there is and having to shout over so many children. It's the cackling I have to do that does me in. I've never had to cackle before and they don't teach you to cackle like a villain at drama school."

Drama school for Ionica was another story of change and moving, in keeping with her life story. Educated at St Mary's School, Topcliffe, she gained a B.Tech from York College, then studied stage combat at East 15 Acting School. "I was a gymnast before that, and stage combat was the closest thing to gymnastics, but it meant three years of fighting, so that's why I left after a year and a half because it was very niche and I wasn't getting the work others were getting."

She switched to Bristol Academy of Performing Arts, suffered a training injury that required major surgery and completed her studies at Expressions Academy of Performing Arts.

"It's come full circle now because I did musical theatre shows at York College and I never thought in my wildest dreams I'd be doing this show in York with more than 90 people I know coming to see me," says Ionica, who can enjoy Christmas Day with her family in Thirsk, in between shows on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.

Jack And The Beanstalk runs at Grand Opera House, York, until January 3. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york