IT is one of the world’s most popular TV shows - and now fantasy drama Game of Thrones has a touch of the North-East about it.

Series five of the worldwide phenomenon is currently showing on Sky Atlantic, and making her bow in it is Teesside actress Faye Marsay, who plays 'The

Waif'.

Faye, 28, is no stranger to sci-fi and fantasy parts, having appeared - to huge critical acclaim - in the Christmas 2014 edition of Dr Who.

But her role in Game of Thrones - in which she made her first appearance on Monday night - could give the Loftus girl’s already impressive career an even bigger boost.

It is all a far cry in scale from her amateur dramatic days on Teesside when, having decided she wanted to act after seeing a pantomime at the age of

six, she took several roles, often in productions with Redcar’s Spotlight Theatre Company.

She was also cast as Sue in a Redcar-based coming of age comedy drama, Is That It.

After attending Guisborough’s Laurence Jackson School and Prior Pursglove College, where she took drama, theatre, film and English, she studied

theatre and performance at the University of Leeds before attending the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

And since pipping 20 other students from leading drama schools to the prestigious Spotlight Prize in 2012, following in the footsteps of the likes of Judi Dench, Albert Finney and Jim Broadbent, her career has really taken off.

Highlights have included playing Richard III’s wife Anne Neville in TV mini-series The White Queen and Candice in popular Channel 4 comedy Fresh

Meat. She also secured her first major film role, Steph Chambers in hit British comedy Pride.