In 1998, girl band B*witched were locked in a race for the Christmas number one spot with the Spice Girls but now, 11 years on, one member will be fighting a very different battle as this year's pantomime kicks off at Fairfield Halls on Friday.

Instead of coming face to face with Scary or Sporty, Keavy Lynch will be battling Letitia Dean, who plays the Wicked Queen to the Irish woman's Snow White in the Duo Pantomimes production.

It's only the second time Keavy has taken to the stage at Christmas, having also played Snow White in Nottingham in 2005, but she is looking forward to working with Dean and the other co-stars, Adam Daye as Dame Donut, Stephen Dean as the Prince, the Magnificent Seven Dwarfs and Richard Cadell as Muddles with everyone's favourite children's characters Sooty and Sweep.

"I have never worked with Sooty before and he will probably try and put me off slightly," says the 30 year-old.

"I guess I need to learn my script with someone badgering me all the way through to get me used to what he will be like.

"I enjoyed Snow White last time because she is very rarely off the stage.

"In some of them you hang around the dressing room for half the show but I prefer to be going all the time."

After B*witched were dropped by their record company before the release of the third album in 2002, Keavy formed a song writing and production company called Ziiiing! but now has a new music project, touring the UK and Ireland with twin sister Edele and their group Ms Lynch.

"It's going really good," she says.

"We are hoping to get a single out the end of next summer as when I finish this we go straight into the studio to finish the album.

"We've been gigging with our live band for the last two and a half years just finding our feet with a new project and to see if the public will accept us with a live band and without the other two from B*witched and they do.

"We do some B*witched songs and some of our own so we give them what they want and then give them what we want.

"Oddly I haven't got tired of C'est La Vie yet but with Ms Lynch we play it with a band so it is quite different.

"When we have to do gigs with backing tracks because the venue can't have the band I have to say I am not very happy, it just feels like going all the way back.

"We don't do any of the dancing now either.

"We do perform but in a very different way, we don't wear denim and we wear high heels not trainers.

"It would be amazing to have the success with this we did with B*witched but we would be lucky to sell half the records B*witched sold because records aren't selling they way they were."

Keavy, who lives in Kingston now, is still in touch with other band members Sinéad O'Carroll and Lindsay Armaou and would not rule out all four of them reuniting one day.

"I never say never but it is definitely not on the cards because of Ms Lynch," she says.

"We have spent the last two and a half years doing it and we want to see where it is going first."

B*witched facts:

- B*Witched's first four singles all reached number one making them the first group to ever do that.

- Keavy's brother, Shane, is a member of Boyzone.

- C'est La Vie was the fifth biggest selling single of 1998, behind Cher's Believe, Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, Run DMC and Jason Nevins' It's Like That and Boyzone's No Matter What.

- They were the youngest female group ever to top the charts when C'est La Vie hit the top spot.

- Their debut album was certified double platinum in the UK and platinum in the US.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, December 4 to January 3, £16.50 to £23. Call 020 8688 9291 or visit fairfield.co.uk.