PICTURES of risqué 1950s pinups and posters from the Moulin Rouge adorn the walls of the home that Scarlet Pallister shares with her husband Tony in Halkyn.

In preparation for another photo shoot, some of the props that she uses in her performances are laid out on the table – colourful fans made of feathers, a pink, diamante-covered parasol and elaborate headdresses.

To meet the Evening Leader, she has taken time out from a hectic-schedule organising a regular burlesque night at a well-known club in Staffordshire which starts in a few weeks time.

Burlesque has become a way of life for Scarlet Pallister. It is now her full-time career and changing her name by deed poll is the culmination of a total transformation she has seen in herself over the past few years. When she moved to the area in 2003, Scarlet, or Sharon as she was then called, was "painfully shy" and lacked self-confidence to such an extent that she had never even considered wearing a bikini in public let alone performing a burlesque dance. Indeed, she was so shy that she had taken a job as a cleaner specifically to avoid having to interact with other people.

"It wasn't what I wanted to do," she explained. "I had no confidence in those days, I was really quite shy. It was a job, it paid the mortgage and what was good about it for me was that I didn't have to see or speak to anybody."

That isolation soon became a problem though. "I didn't want to have to talk to people but at the same time I was alienating myself," she recalled. "Because we had just moved to the area I had no friends. It got to a point where I couldn't stand it any longer and I got quite depressed."

It was then that husband Tony spotted an advertisement in a TV magazine looking for entrants for the popular Channel 4 show Faking It. He showed it to his wife and suggested that she apply. "I never thought anything would come of it," said Scarlet. "They emailed me a questionnaire to fill in asking things like 'How do you see yourself?' I said something like 'I'm 5ft 4ins and wouldn't stand out in a crowd'."

The show's producers were impressed by Scarlet and asked her if they could come to Halkyn and meet her. "They did a screen test and they asked how I'd feel about doing certain things designed to assess my confidence."

Scarlet was chosen from more than 3,000 applicants who had replied to the advert and took a real leap of faith to appear on the show and left her cleaning job before heading to London.

"I didn't know what I was going to have to do. I'd said that I was scared of water and I thought they were going to ask me to swim the channel or something like that which I would have refused," she recalled. "They came to film in the village hall at the bingo night. I was given an envelope in which it said I was going to be a burlesque performer. I didn't know what it was at first. It was only when we got to London that afternoon that I realised."

Following a short period of training – with experts such as burlesque artist Immodesty Blaize and dancer Wayne Sleep – Scarlet had to convince a panel of judges that she was a professional burlesque artist.

"There were another three girls there who were professionals and I had to pretend to them that I was too. If they had known I was the faker then they could have made it very difficult for me." As it turned out, none of the other girls spotted her as the faker and neither did the judges.

"One of the professionals told another of the girls that she thought she was the faker," mused Scarlet. "And I agreed with her that I'd thought she was too."

The show gave Scarlet's confidence a real lift. Whilst training, Immodesty had taken her to a shop on a busy road in London and told her to perform a routine in a shop window which she had been reluctant to do for almost two hours before finally agreeing. By the end of filming, Scarlet wanted to do it as a job. "I was a different person," She said. "My hair was different, my clothes were different – my husband said it was a complete transformation."

The programme wasn't going to be aired for another 18 months, however and Scarlet was not allowed to discuss the outcome of it. This meant that her desire to continue her burlesque career had to be put on hold and she took another job, at the Post Office. When the programme was shown on TV though, Scarlet became an overnight sensation.

"They had 1,500 hits on their website after the show was aired which was the most that they had ever had. I got lots of people asking for bookings which was great. The first time I performed, people were queuing up for an hour and a half afterwards waiting to meet me and asking if they could have a photo with me which was nice but quite surreal. I was still having to turn some bookings down because I was working at the Post Office but I felt like I was giving up some good opportunities."

It was only in April this year that Scarlet finally quit her day job to concentrate on the thing that has become her passion.

Burlesque is a lot different to stripping. "It's about what you don't see," Scarlet explained. "Although you take your clothes off, you never really see anything. You always wear nipple tassels and you are covered by the props such as in a fan dance – there is always one fan covering you with perhaps a reveal at the end. That's why it died out for a long time – why watch burlesque when you can go down the road to a strip club? It is about slow movement and it can be very theatrical. It is not just men who come to watch, there are often a lot of women in the audience."

As well as performing, Scarlet also now runs workshops in burlesque. "We have a bit of fun doing it," she said." A lot of the girls get different things out of it – they might only go on stage once or never get on stage at all but try it to boost their confidence."

Tony is very supportive of Scarlet and is helping her to organise her forthcoming burlesque nights. "He comes with me to all my performances.

He absolutely loves it. I've asked him what it felt like to watch me on stage, I'd never worn a bikini before I went on the show. He's not embarrassed at all – he says it's like watching someone completely different on stage."

The neighbours seem to have taken to the idea as well. "One of the neighbours always jokes that I'm never dressed when he comes around. After the show was aired, a few of them came around with bottles of wine. I suggested that they should try it and some of them put the tassels on over their jumpers. If they see me on TV or see something they think I'll find interesting on TV or in the paper then they'll always phone or visit to tell me. When Immodesty came here last time, her visit made it into the Halkyn Mountain News."

Scarlet's career as a burlesque artist has gone from strength to strength. She has appeared on This Morning, taking part in the show's "beat the stylist" competition, challenging celebrity fashion guru John Scott to see who could create the best look.

There are other TV appearances in the pipeline and she has also been the subject of a painting by an up-and-coming Manchester-based artist due to be unveiled next month.

Scarlet is particularly excited about the start of the regular burlesque night she has been organising. It will be held The Leopard Inn in Burslem, near Stoke-on-Trent and will feature burlesque dancing as well as contortionists, jugglers and magicians.

"I want there to be something for everyone," she added "Fans of burlesque, those who have always wanted to go to a burlesque night and those who are just curious."

For more information on Scarlet's appearances and workshops visit www.scarletfeverburlesque.co.uk