Victoria, from Kinross, graduated from the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester only last summer, but has already tackled classic Shakespearean roles in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, a murder reconstruction for BBC’s Crimewatch series, a low-budget feature film and is about to play a tough-as-nails, cigar-smoking businesswoman onstage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in a Scots translation based on a medieval morality play.

It’s an interesting menu, but she’s pleased to be showing just how versatile she can be.

“I could get typecast as the typical blonde,” says Victoria, “but it’s much more enjoyable to play a part that’s very different, physically and emotionally from yourself – there’s a real challenge in making the audience believe you are someone else completely.”

A former pupil of Kinross High School, Victoria had always wanted to act but started out with communications studies at university before deciding that it was acting or nothing.

“I don’t know where it came from,” she explained. “My uncle is a theatre producer in New York and I have an aunt who sings, but my mum is a teacher and my dad a consultant so there’s no direct link! I did a lot of school shows as many kids do – I was Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, which I loved – and somehow it just grew from there.

“I got involved with the Edinburgh Acting School and then ended up going to Manchester.”

Even her Shakespeare roles have been far from conventional. Her most recent role, the character of Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet has been changed to Benvolia.

Theatre critic Andrew Eaton was certainly impressed by her interpretation, writing that “special praise should go to Victoria Balnaves, cast as a female Benvolio, a nice trick which, skilfully played by Balnaves, adds a sexual frisson to her scenes with Romeo.”

Among her other credits are voice overs for major companies including British Gas and a meaty role as a trouble teen in a play for BBC Radio 3.

Her first feature, Appleseed Lake, was premiered at the British Film Institute in London last year and Victoria is also planning to be filming in Scotland next year when the location shoot for Jessica’s Will, directed by Roddy Simpson and supported by Angus Digital Media, based at Brechin, takes place over the summer