She spent time acting there and later joined the Everyman Youth Theatre in Cheltenham before beginning a degree in modern European literature at the University of Reading.
Further appearances include roles in Queen of Swords, In Deep, Holby City, Life on Mars, and an eight-episode stint in Merseybeat.
Her audition was "shrouded in secrecy" and the part required a lengthy make-up process; the prosthetics took three hours to apply and 90 minutes to remove.
[1] Further involvement in the Doctor Who franchise includes guest roles in the audio dramas The Bride of Peladon and The Fourth Wall, and a part in the Torchwood episode "They Keep Killing Suzie".
In 2015, she played Roz Forrester, a companion of the Seventh Doctor, in three novel adaptations of the Virgin New and Missing Adventures, Damaged Goods, Original Sin and Cold Fusion.