Michelle Collins stunned as tooth falls out during panto performance

Michelle Collins was left stunned when one of her teeth fell out during a panto performance.

The former 'EastEnders' actress was playing the wicked queen Nightshade in 'Beauty and the Beast' in Poole, Dorset, when she suffered the unfortunate mishap, but she managed to plug the gap with some chewing gum.

She said: "Chris (Jarvis) and Sam our company manager we’re running around trying to help while I am panicking.

"Anyway chewing gum saved the night. I just stuck it over the hole and I went on for the second act, thank god I had finished singing."

Former 'Coronation Street' star Michelle, 59, joked she sounded like 'Loose Women' panellist Janet Street-Porter "with a lisp" after the incident.

She is quoted by the Daily Star newspaper as saying: "I sounded like Janet Street-Porter with a lisp. Oh what a night."

Michelle is said to have since undergone emergency dental surgery to sort her gnashers out.

Earlier this month, the former Cindy Beale actress urged people to support pantos amid the coronavirus pandemic.

She told the Bournemouth Echo newspaper: "I think it’s really tough trying to do a panto in Covid because it’s completely different from olden times, we’re all having to wear masks, we take COVID tests every day, we only have two understudies and we’re all in bubbles, we know how important it is that we’re safe as well as protecting the audience.

"We really are putting a lot of effort into the safety precautions to the point where it was kind of stressful in the beginning, having to get up early and having to test but after a while you kind of get used to it because I think this is going to be the way of the world."