SEAMSTRESS Janet Catlow only wanted a look behind the scenes of a top West End musical, but ended up saving the show.

Janet, from Ash Lane, Great Harwood, had travelled to London to see Crazy For You with BBC Radio Lancashire producer Harriet Roberts, who was making a documentary programme.

Janet, wardrobe mistress with the Accrington Operatic Society, was watching the pre-show activities in the Prince Edward Theatre when disaster struck.

She explained: "We were chatting backstage with the wardrobe master, Duncan Newman, when he told us he had a problem.

"The female lead, Helen Way, had fallen ill and so had her understudy. Duncan said the costumes needed altering for the second understudy but there was only an hour to do it."

She added: "I volunteered to help and he jumped at the offer. It was all very exciting. We worked like beavers. I altered two dresses and we had everything ready just in time for curtain-up."

Janet, who runs her own accessory business in Clayton-le-Moors with her husband Bert and son Stephen, added: "It was nice to see that the clothes we had altered fitted the understudy so well.

"I've been a wardrobe assistant at the local operatic society for 14 years and keep asking someone else to take on the job - but they insist I'm perfect! "

Producer Harriet Roberts said: "It was so good that people could be forgiven for thinking we stage-managed it. But we didn't. It happened exactly the way we recorded it."

Radio Lancashire listeners can hear how Janet came to the rescue when the documentary Crazy For You is broadcast on Christmas day from 3pm to 4pm and Boxing Day from 11am to midday.

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