Switch on your television this weekend and you may a see a familiar little face.

For appearing in the BBC's latest period drama, Berkeley Square, is seven-year-old Emily Canfor-Dumas, a pupil at Radlett's Newberries School.

Emily, who lives in Harris Lane, Shenley, comes from a very theatrical family. Her father, Edward, is a script writer and her mother, Coralyn, is an actress and teacher. In fact it seems it is only her football-mad brother, nine-year-old Alexander, who has escaped the showbiz bug and remained unimpressed by it all.

Coralyn does however claim that Emily was never pushed into acting -- far from it.

"We never encouraged either of the children to go into the business," said Coralyn. "We know how difficult it can be, all the drawbacks, but she seemed to want it and it was difficult to stop her."

Emily was chosen from more than 100 children to play part of Harriet St John in the ten-part series, which is about nannies working in Edwardian London. The drama was shot from June to December last year, and during that time, Emily was taught by a private tutor to make up for the days she missed at school.

"She didn't mind missing school but she minded missing Brownies and swimming very much. She had only just joined the Third Radlett Brownies and hadn't enrolled. She really did not want to miss that," said Coralyn. "I suppose it's good that she is like that as it keeps her feet firmly on the ground."

It may be difficult for Emily to remain so down-to-earth in the future however -- already she has been snapped up by a top agent and has set her sights on becoming a star. "I hope she waits a while though," said Coralyn. "There is so much time to do all that and it is very important to have a good education first. We won't encourage stage school but of course she may have already made up her mind!"

Berkeley Square begins on BBC One, Sunday at 8pm, and runs for ten weeks.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.