Ashley Lilley joined members of the Lilley family for the matinee showing of Mamma Mia!, in which she plays one of bride-to-be Sophie's best friends and confidantes, at the Discovery Theatre on Saturday afternoon, before a party at the Galley restaurant next door to celebrate the occasion.

And though she enjoyed walking up the red carpet and soaking up the glitz and glam of the film's British and American premieres, the former Rothesay Primary and Rothesay Academy pupil - accompanied on her visit by co-star Rachel McDowall - admitted there was something special about seeing the film on home soil.

"This is the best premiere I've been to," Ashley told us shortly after the closing credits rolled at the island's small 90-seater cinema.

"It's been great fun, and it's fantastic to have all my family here.

"I only arrived yesterday, but I met a couple of people on the boat who recognised me and said hello.

"Everyone has been really supportive, but then they always have, right back to the days of the school shows. It's a great place to come from - from day one, everyone makes you feel so comfortable."

Ashley left the Academy at the age of 15 to study at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London, following in the footsteps of many famous actors and performers, including Noel Coward, Sadie Frost, Patsy Kensit, Leslie Phillips and Rothesay's own Lena Zavaroni.

And after landing a prominent supporting role in the film version of the stage musical, featuring all the 1970s hits of Swedish supergroup ABBA, she seems determined to make the most of the experience, however long it lasts.

"When you're lying in the sunshine on a beach on a Greek island one minute and the next you're singing ABBA hits with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, that's when you realise you don't do a normal job for a living," Ashley confessed.

"For the last three weeks I've been doing publicity for the film, attending the London premiere, and then flying to New York for the American premiere, and then going on to LA for meetings out there - I loved New York, but I wasn't so sure about LA, it's all a bit full-on there and I don't want to be in the middle of that all the time.

"Today was the last bit of publicity. This is my relaxation - now I need a vodka!"

Our Film Buff Writes: Would Mamma Mia! have packed out the Discovery Theatre if Ashley Lilley hadn't been part of the cast? Well, no, probably not. But takings of £5.2 million in its first week, and a place at the top of the UK box office charts to boot, suggest that the film's popularity on its arrival in Rothesay isn't just down to a proud Bute audience keen to see one of their own getting her big screen break.

Those local audiences don't have to wait long to see Ashley on screen: the opening credits have scarcely faded from sight when 20-year-old Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), the night before her wedding, confides in friends Ali (Ashley) and Lisa (Rachel McDowall) that she wants her father to give her away, but doesn't know who he is.

Having stolen a sneak look at her mother's diary from 20 years ago, she has deduced that he is one of three men: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) or Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) - all of whom she has surreptitiously invited to the ceremony on her picture-postcard Greek island home, with a view to rooting out the right one in time for the I Do's.

The star of the show though - besides Ashley, of course! - is Sophie's mother Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), whose walls of certain singledom are gradually ground down by her daughter's machinations and the presence of her former beaus until the prospect of a 'normal' happy wedding day becomes a seemingly impossible dream.

Along the way, of course, the tale is peppered by enthusiastic renditions of all ABBA's greatest hits, the best of which are Does Your Mother Know?, featuring Donna's former bandmate Tanya (Christine Baranski) and a host of the groom's friends, and The Winner Takes It All, as the relationship between Donna and Sam threatens to reach breaking point.

The profusion of ABBA hits (though curiously the script makes no reference to the songs' origins) make it impossible for the film to take itself too seriously; those who love the Swedish super group's seventies smash hits will be in their element, and even those who don't should find it impossible to raise a smile.

And Ashley? Well, that opening scene is her busiest of the film, though throughout she carries herself with confidence and poise and the kind of glittering smile guaranteed to touch a heart or two. And she even keeps her Scottish accent!