Hull ballet dancer in Royal Opera House performance

A ballet dancer from Hull who became the first Briton to join one of the world's leading ballet companies in Russia is to perform at the Royal Opera House in London.

Xander Parish, 28, will take to the stage as Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with St Petersburg's Mariinsky Ballet.

He started taking lessons at the age of eight at a Hull dance school and says he was inspired by the fictional story of Billy Elliot, another northern boy who became a ballet dancer.