A BRIGHT Rubery youngster is looking forward to his first night on stage in comedy play Brassed Off at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Eleven-year-old Mikey Lightfoot could not believe his luck when he landed the part in the funny and poignant tale of life in South Yorkshire.

Set in the early 1990s, life is bleak with the threat to close the pit and the colliery band on the verge of splitting up. However, local girl Gloria returns home to give everyone a ray of hope.

The play, which opens tomorrow night (Thursday), was also a 1996 smash-hit film staring Ewan McGregor, Tara Fitzgerald and Pete Postlethwaite.

Mikey, a pupil at Holywell Primary School, attended the audition around a month ago and has since had three weeks of intense rehearsals.

Proud mum Julie said: "When he went along to the audition he didn't expect to get the part, so he was absolutely thrilled when he found out he had got it."

The show, which runs at the Centenary Square theatre until Saturday, June 21, also includes live music from a number of brass bands including the Stourport-on-Severn brass band.

But Mikey, of Waseley Road, is not the only talented youngster in the Lightfoot family. His 13-year-old brother Stuart recently took part in a BBC crime programme to be screened this summer.

Both youngsters go to the Betty Fox stage school in Birmingham four nights a week.

Tickets for Brassed Off on 0121 236 4455.