The show must go on is a showbusiness clich -- but for Sarah Stephenson, playing Sinbad in a Wallingford pantomime, it became a reality.

During a fight scene in the panto, being performed by the Sinodun Players at the Corn Exchange, she fell and broke her arm.

She finished the night's performance and after spending nine hours in the John Radcliffe Hospital's accident and emergency department, was back on stage for the rest of the week with her arm in plaster.

Miss Stephenson, 29, has been a member of the Players for a year.

She is a patient advice and liaison officer at the Warneford Hospital, in Oxford, and lives off Abingdon Road, Oxford.

She said: "It was all in the best traditions of the theatre -- something you see other people do in musicals and so on, but never think it could happen to you.

"We had to change a few lines in the panto and all the 'cast' puns you can think of were included.

"I got my plaster cast colour co-ordinated with my costume. It was quite a talking point."