Olivia Dickens is relishing her seventh show with Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Cinderella on the main-house stage from December 17-31.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Lantz Sussex Newspaper. It's
00:06really lovely to speak to Olivia Dickens today. Olivia, you're going to be part of the cast
00:10of the fabulous thing that's created on the Festival Theatre stage every year by Chichester
00:15Festival Youth Theatre, it's Cinderella. Now you go back a long way with the Youth
00:19Theatre, don't you? And you were saying something interesting, what you've gained from being
00:23part of it, haven't you? How has it changed?
00:28It's really just, I mean, it's sort of, it's given me kind of my future because I know
00:33that I want to be in this industry for my career, whether that be on stage or off stage.
00:39So it's kind of, you know, given me my future, but it's also confidence and some of my closest
00:45friends, and just having a sense of really belonging somewhere, which I feel like it's
00:51quite hard to find. Because, you know, being a teenager, you're, there's so many different
00:56things going on in your lives, whereas really having a place where you feel totally comfortable,
01:00it's just completely life changing.
01:01And this is a real community, and that was so important, as we were saying during the
01:04pandemic, you were in the ill-fated but absolutely brilliant first Pinocchio, weren't you? Which
01:09was cut short.
01:11Yeah, no, it was having a show where, because I feel like I've never done a show where a
01:19cast has been that close before, it was just incredible, because we'd all been through
01:23this really traumatic time period where you couldn't see anyone, we'd all stopped doing
01:29school because obviously, you know, people of my age, school is your main form of, you
01:34know, social activity. And so the show, the theatre was just like a complete, just change
01:42of space and community. And it was just, yeah, it was incredible.
01:46Just to get to the point in those circumstances of staging anything was phenomenal, really.
01:52It was amazing. It was so unique. So many people had to stop doing many different productions
01:58of different things. And we were able to carry on for so long. It was so impressive how long
02:01we could keep doing it.
02:04So all this solidified your desire to go into the profession then. How will you make that
02:11happen, do you think?
02:14Well, I'm in lower sixth of college right now, so still looking at options of, you know,
02:19and further education, and whether I apply for drama school. I'm still sort of toying
02:25between wanting to be on stage and wanting to be behind the scenes. I'm still not sure.
02:30Is that possible?
02:31Well, yeah, a few people have, that would be sort of the dream.
02:37And on your CV, if you apply, when you apply, the fact that you've done so much for the
02:42youth theatre here is going to be hugely in your favour, isn't it?
02:46Yeah.
02:48Fantastic. Congratulations on everything so far. Very, very much indeed. Looking forward
02:52to seeing the show. Thank you, Olivia. Thank you.
02:55Thank you so much.