'Playing Jenny Lind is an honour'

Actor, singer and harpist Penny Ashmore knew when she saw a casting call to play Jenny Lind in a major stage production, she had the skills to do it.

The show, Barnum, is based on the life of showman P. T. Barnum, covering the years 1835 to 1880 when he toured his performing companies.

Ashmore got the role, and what is even more special is that Lind, also known as the Swedish Nightingale, spent her final years living in Malvern, Worcestershire - the county in which Ashmore was born and raised.