Playing Jenny Lind is an honour, says actor

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.

"They were open to which instrument she would play... when I saw that casting call I thought 'if I can't get that job, I'll be fuming'," she said.

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.

"She's from my area, she's a soprano, she's a very, very interesting person in history to me - it felt like big shoes to fill but I was so honoured to get the chance to portray her," Ashmore told the BBC.

As well as combining her singing, acting and harp skills, Ashmore has to speak Swedish in the production, which is in Birmingham until Saturday and comes to Malvern later in 2026.

"I've also learned other instruments for the show that have been more challenging, but the harp feels like an extension of me, and its lovely to get to bring that to Jenny Lind," she added.

Getting the role felt like a full-circle moment, she said, having visited Birmingham Hippodrome - where she is performing a leg of the show - as a child.

She has also loved theatre since she was young.

"Worcester was a wonderful place to grow up in the arts, I was part of so many shows, amateur companies, I did classical music and musical theatre," she said.

"[The Barnum show] is extravagant, it's spectacular, it's trying to be what Barnum was presenting which was just humbugging the audience, bedazzling them with nonstop sights."

Ashmore's ability to perform at all could be considered a miracle - as a teenager she had four cardiac arrests during one night, and her dad saved her life by performing CPR.

She now has an advanced pacemaker.

"I was definitely afraid that performing would be too intense a lifestyle after such a big surprise and health issues, but I think it goes to show I had a lot of support - I worked really hard to make theatre accessible to me," she said.

"It really shows that from the absolute depths of fear, you can totally come back and follow your dreams."

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