WHEN Moyo Akande was a five-year-old pupil at primary school in Pollok, she was so shy her mum had check up on her, to make sure she was fitting in.

Twenty years on, the Glaswegian actress is now appearing at London's prestigious Globe Theatre, home to Shakespeare's plays, with a key role in Macbeth.

"It's been quite a journey," says the six-foot-tall thespian during a mid-season break. "I certainly wasn't the performing stage school type. I just wasn't confident and felt self-conscious.

"My mum was afraid I wasn't mixing with the other kids or communicating. And I was always tall, so I just didn't fit in. But that began to change when I was eight ."

Moyo's parents were childhood sweethearts in Nigeria who came to London to find work.

Moyo's dad, who works in chemical engineering, then landed a job in Glasgow and the family – she has a sister and two brothers – moved north when she was a baby.

The family finally settled in Bearsden, and Moyo, then aged eight, was sent to acting classes – and they worked.

"I went to Glasgow Academy Musical Theatre Arts and Pace, as well as dance classes, and they brought me out of my shell. My confidence grew.

"I was still a little shy, but when I walked on to the stage I lit up."

As a teenager, Moyo auditioned for the Dance School of Scotland at Knightswood Secondary School and landed a place.

"Out of hundreds of applicants, only eight people were chosen. But I knew that was where I belonged."

By this point she knew where her future lay.

"A lot of Nigerian families would encourage their kids to become doctors or lawyers, but once my mum knew I wanted to become a performer she encouraged me all the way. She's been fantastic."

The Knightswood experience set Moyo up for the move to London.

"I sent off applications and was accepted by Arts Educational (the London performing arts school in Chiswick): "It was scary thing to do at the time," she says.

"I cried for the first week because the course was so hard and so many emotions were going on. They strip you down and build you back up again.

"I was only 17 when I moved down to Chiswick. But then I remembered that my mum had come all the way from Nigeria without her family to make a new life.

"After about a week I began to settle in.

"I also felt I fitted in, in the sense that I wasn't so different after all. As soon as I hit London I thought 'I've never seen so many black people in my life'.

"It was only on my first trip back home to Glasgow that first Christmas, when I got off the train at Central Station, that I realised that, being black, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

"In London, even my height wasn't an issue."

The time spent at Arts Ed was "fantastic." "The course was so hard. But 80% of Arts Ed students in my year are now working. It has a great success rate."

Straight out of college, Moyo joined the cast of the Wizard of Oz in 2008, working alongside the likes of Gary Wilmot.

"I was playing a tree, but I was the best tree on that stage," she says, grinning. "And I got to sing."

From there she landed work at Birmingham Rep playing the White Witch in The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

Now she's at Shakespeare's Globe, playing one of Macbeth's witches.

"I can't believe I'm at the Globe," she says, with clear excitement in her voice. "I've always wanted to become a straight actress. I think it was the happiest day of my life when I found out I was going to be a Witch – and at the Globe."

Performing at the Globe Theatre in south London represents a particularly tough challenge.

"It's in the open air, of course, and there are no microphones to project your voice, so you can be delivering your lines with helicopters flying overhead.

"But the back-up is great. There's a person to help with voice, another with movement and where to stand on stage, and, of course, the director keeping your performance right.

"It's such an incredible place to be."

Moyo has also made small forays into television. She had a small role in the final Taggart, and more recently appeared in the BBC sitcom Bob Servant with Brian Cox, playing a radio producer.

So far, however, River City hasn't called on the services of the six-foot glamazon. But now that Moyo has cast off her inhibitions, she's determined to make her mark.

"I want to be a constant face on television," she says, smiling.

"When I was growing up, I didn't see anyone like me on the television at all. It would be nice if I could be a role model."