Strictly Come Dancing queen Camilla Dallerup will wave her magic wand over Worthing this month when she stars as the Fairy Godmother in the Pavilion Theatre’s pantomime Cinderella.

The professional dancer will be weaving in a few dance moves, a song or two and a sprinkle of stardust in her role in the classic fairy tale of a beautiful girl forced to serve her jealous stepsisters.

Also starring Cara Dudgeon as Cinderella, Matt Evers from Dancing on Ice as Prince Charming and Mark Read from boyband A1 as Dandini, the Christmas pantomime will follow the story of the girl whose Fairy Godmother magically transforms a pumpkin into a sparkling coach, mice into white horses and her raggedy clothes into a stunning ballgown so she can meet her Prince.

“The transformation scene is my favourite bit of the story,” Camilla tells Simply Worthing. “It’s magical and it’s such an important part of the story. I love seeing children’s faces in the audience as they watch this scene.”

It’s the third time Camilla, who won Strictly Come Dancing in 2008 partnering Holby City and Waterloo Road actor Tom Chambers, has played the Fairy Godmother in panto and it’s not the first time she has worked with Cara and Matt.

“I feel like I know everybody in this production,” she says. “We have a lovely relationship and we’ve become really good friends. I sort of feel motherly towards them. The actors playing the Ugly Sisters are the same too - they are brilliant and so funny.”

And she adds with a twinkle in her eye, “Because of my Strictly background, I’m rather drawn to their amazing costumes! And they have offered to do my make-up for me...”

Camilla, 41, is Danish, so pantomime, a particularly English type of live musical comedy, was an alien concept to her until fairly recently. “When I first came to England, I thought it was crazy and weird and I never went to one until seven years ago – and then I thought it was the wildest thing ever. I laughed so much – it was hilarious.”

She was introduced to panto by her husband, Hollyoaks actor Kevin Sacre. They married in 2010 after merting two years earlier on the set of reality TV series The Underdog Show, shortly after she left Strictly Come Dancing as a professional dancer.

Born in Aalborg, Denmark, she says performing and dancing have always been a big part of her life. “I started dancing when I was two-and-a-half when my mum dragged me along to a dance school,” she says. “I suppose right at the beginning I was just like any other kid who wanted to be outside playing instead of going dancing – that was, until my mum said, ‘OK, fine, no more dancing’... then I was hooked, because now it was my choice, and it has been my choice ever since.”

She joined the Lille Nicholaisen Academy for Perfomance, where she studied not just dance, but also singing, acting, and modelling. Choosing to focus on dancing, she won the Danish Open Championships at the age of 12, and while she was dancing in her teens and 20s, she also studied business, law and finance.

She moved to England in 1996, where she became dancing partners with Brendan Cole, who would also become her fiancé. They spent four “amazing” years together as amateurs, then went professional in 2000, coming third in Latin American in the UK Closed Championships in 2003 and placed in the top 12 of the world professionals at the Open British Championships.

Camilla and Brendan joined Strictly as professional dancers from its first series in 2004, when she partnered TV antiques expert David Dickinson while Brendan was paired with newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky. However, the first series saw Camilla break off their engagement, although she remained as a professional dancer for six series of Strictly until 2008. She toured with Strictly in 2009 and earlier this year was a judge on the Strictly Come Dancing Live UK Tour.

“I don’t miss Strictly,” Camilla says. “I’m grateful for all the time on it and I learned a lot. And I still feel like part of the family because I have worked with the Strictly team on and off since 2008.”

Camilla now divides her time between Britain, where her dancing partner for the past three years has been fellow Strictly professional Ian Waite, and her home in Los Angeles, where she lives with Kevin and has launched her own business as a life coach.

Earlier this year she published her autobiography/self-help guide Strictly Inspirational: How I Learnt How to Dream, Act, Believe and Succeed, and is working on her second book, a self-help guide.

“I came to LA to finish writing my first book,” she explains. “When I was a teenager, I was fascinated by the mind and spent a lot of time writing letters to friends who were feeling down. I like harmony and for people to feel comfortable around each other, and because of my career, I have been around sports psychologists and motivational experts all my life.

“And this ties in with me doing panto in the first place. I was always saying to people on Strictly, ‘Put yourself out of your comfort zone’, but realised that I was not doing that myself. So I couldn’t understand what the contestants were going through. I needed to do something that made me feel uncomfortable and I was thinking, ‘What can I do that will make me tremble with nerves?

“I realised that for me it is singing - I’m not a singer and in panto, I sing a song. It’s nerve-wracking but it does give me a thrill of excitement and I finally understand how the Strictly contestants feel.”

Camilla arrives in Worthing from LA at the beginning of this month for rehearsals for Cinderella. “I visited Worthing for the preparations and I’m packing lots of jumpers!” she says. “It’s so hot in LA and the English winters are so cold. But I’m really looking forward to it – my parents are flying over to stay with me for the show so I’ll be looking around for the best places to go for coffee.”

• Cinderella is at the Pavilion Theatre, Marine Parade, Worthing, from Friday December 4 until Sunday January 3. Tickets £18.50-£21. For details, phone 01903 206206 or visit worthingtheatres.co.uk