A wobbly front tooth and a dose of chickenpox almost ended Sophie Graham's starring role in a television advert.

Sophie, eight, is the child who opens the new BT advert, asking an audience in a huge stadium: "What is the name of the indent above my lip?"

But her role in the advert, which was filmed on Table Mountain in South Africa, hung in the balance as her front tooth wobbled precariously.

Director Jake Scott, the son of Gladiator director Ridley Scott, feared it would drop out and affect the way she spoke.

Mum Sue, of Abbey Road, Sompting, said: "She had to eat scrambled egg and yoghurt all week. They planned to get a dentist to fit a false one if it fell out but she would have hated that."

The tooth finally toppled out the day Sophie and her mum returned home after a week's filming.

As they sat in business class seats for their journey home, Sophie discovered she had had another narrow escape.

Sue said: "Right in front of my eyes, spots began to appear one by one. Sophie had chickenpox."

The advert is spearheading BT's More Connections More Possibilities campaign, which was launched on June 26.

It shows a stadium packed with thousands of spectators looking towards a central stage where people of different ages and nationalities ask questions.

Sophie, a pupil at North Lancing Primary School, already has an impressive acting CV, which includes adverts for Fairy Liquid and CIS Insurance and a part in the television drama Seeing Red, alongside former Coronation Street barmaid Sarah Lancashire.