AT the age of just 16, Joe Keegan is a champion Irish dancer who can play five musical instruments.

But the teenager, from Westhoughton, is hoping it will be his singing skills which impress the coaches on Saturday's episode of The Voice UK.

Joe, who plays the piano, guitar, flute, ukulele and drums, will perform Keep Your Head Up by Ben Howard on the BBC1 singing show in a bid to impress Kylie Minogue, Sir Tom Jones, will.i.am and Ricky Wilson.

Joe, whose influences include Mumford & Sons and Tom Odell, said: “My dad put me in for the audition.

"He filled the forms out and told me a week before I was going to Manchester to the first audition at the Hilton Hotel.

“I wasn’t going to say no.

“Obviously, it’s a massive opportunity.”

From a musical family, his sister Sarah Morgan is a former music teacher and his grandmother was a concert pianist who played at the Albert Halls at the age of 12.

While singing is a passion, his first love was for Irish dancing which he discovered at the tender age of three, when he saw a video of Riverdance star Michael Flatley at a family friend’s house.

The folk singer, who is studying A Levels at Thornleigh Salesian College, said: “I starting bobbing around to it.

“Every time I went to their house, I asked for this video to be put on.”

When he was six, he started going to Irish dance classes in Leigh and entering competitions, winning the 2012 North West Regional Irish Dancing Championships and recently qualifying for the World Irish Dance Championships for the seventh time, taking place in London in April.

Having grown up around Irish folk music, he also writes his own songs and won last year’s Manchester Irish Festival songwriting competition.

Joe, who went to Bolton School and then Thornleigh from year 10, added: “Music has been a massive part of my life.

“I would love to be number one on the top 40.”

If Joe wins a place with one of the coaches, he will follow in the footsteps of Vicky Jones, aged 29, from Bromley Cross, the sister of McFly’s Danny Jones, who landed a spot on Sir Tom’s team last month.

The Voice is on BBC1 on Saturday at 7.10pm.