A TEENAGER from Lostock has been accepted into the National Youth Theatre.

Sophie Ashton, who attends St Joseph's school, auditioned for the NYT in January at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and discovered she had been accepted earlier this month.

At age 14 she is the youngest age the company accept and she will be a member until she is 26.

Sophie attends the Meladrama Acting School on Gaskell Street. By the time she was 13 she had completed five LAMDA (London academy of music and dramatic art) exams.

Sophie's mum Liz Nolan said: "She first began acting when we were on holiday when she was eight.

"They actually thought she was 18 in the audition she was that mature.

"It was even more bizarre because just before she went into her audition, a street performer started singing the same song that was at her brother's funeral in 2013, we didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, I felt he was with her.

"Sophie does a lot of work in the community, we've done local radio together, she's worked with Headspace Bolton and Emmaus.

"But her dream is to be a comedy actress, she's always doing funny impressions and making her friends laugh. She loves Catherine Tate, who was also a member of NYT, and she'll often imitate her characters."