DANIELLE Hope will be starring in the stage production of Grease next year.

Danielle, who has family in Penketh, will play Sandy in the UK tour of the hit 70s musical.

The 24-year-old will join The Wanted’s Tom Parker, who plays Danny, EastEnders’ Louisa Lytton, who plays Rizzo, and Celebrity Big Brother’s Darren Day, who plays Teen Angel.

Danielle Hope, whose niece Chloe Bibby attended Warrington’s Felicia Burns Dance School, captured the nation’s hearts after winning BBC’s Over The Rainbow.

The TV show competition was about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s search for a Dorothy for his production of The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium.

Danielle competed against more than 9,000 girls before winning the part and making her professional stage debut.

She went on to star as Eponine in the West End production of Les Miserables, Cathy in The Last Five Years, the narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Maria in The Sound of Music.

Following Danielle’s success, she has released a single of the song Over The Rainbow in aid of the BBC Performing Arts Fund and Prostate UK.

She has also made numerous television appearances on the likes of The One Show, The Alan Titchmarsh Show, This Morning and Paul O’ Grady’s Movie Musicals.

Danielle has performed at The Royal Variety Performance, presented at the Children’s BAFTAs, and judged at the Mercury Musical Developments’ S&S Awards and Stephen Sondheim Society Competition.

Since breaking out on Broadway in 1972, audiences have never tired of Grease’s mix of teenage angst and young romance.

Written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, directed by David Gilmore and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, the show transports you to a time of 1950s pop culture, denim, cheerleaders, slick hairstyles and rock and roll.

This award-winning production originally opened in the West End in 1993.

The show has since toured throughout the world and has been seen by more than 12 million people in the UK alone.

n Grease is at Liverpool Empire from April 3 to 8.

Tickets are from £12. Visit atgtickets.com/liverpool or call 0844 871 3017.

DAVID MORGAN