Francesca Hayward's spectacular leap from young fan to star of Romeo And Juliet

The dancer, 23, is tipped to become Britain’s next great ballerina, and began taking ballet classes when she was two-and-a-half

Francesca Hayward was only four when her grandmother took her to see the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House.

“She couldn’t take her eyes off it for a moment,” said Diana Hayward. “She was almost on the seat in front. I remember she said: ‘I wish I could dance on that stage, nanny’.”

Two decades later Hayward, now a first soloist at the Royal Ballet, is preparing to play the female lead in Prokofiev’s Romeo And Juliet — on the same stage at Covent Garden.

The dancer, 23, is tipped to become Britain’s next great ballerina — as well as the company’s first mixed-race female principal dancer.

Hayward, the daughter of a Kenyan mother and a British father, was born in Nairobi. Her parents separated when she was two and she went to live with her paternal grandparents, Diana and John, in the flat above their pharmacy in Worthing.

Mrs Hayward, who now lives in Norbury with her husband, told the Standard: “We knew she was musical from the moment she came to live with us. I took her to Chichester Cathedral and she heard the choir and sat up in her pushchair and started moving to the music.

“We bought her a video of The Nutcracker and she just started dancing to that all the time. We then bought her the videos of Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake ... you name it.

“She copied all those ballet stars. It was astonishing seeing a child copying what adults were doing like that. She’d be dancing sometimes for three or four hours at a time.”

Hayward began taking ballet classes when she was two-and-a-half, and gained a place at the Royal Ballet’s Junior Associates Saturday school. At 11 she went to the school’s White Lodge in Richmond Park, before entering the company full-time in 2011.

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She has since starred in The Nutcracker, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Manon, and has been nominated for this year’s The Times/South Bank Breakthrough Award.

Hayward is estranged from her mother but regularly sees her father Lewis Hayward, 48, headmaster of University College School Junior Branch in Hampstead. He said: “It’s heart-stopping watching her perform. I have every confidence in her but as a parent I always worry in case something goes wrong.”

Hayward makes her debut as Juliet at the Royal Opera House on October 23. Tickets are available on 0207 304 4000 or at roh.org.uk

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