Olivia is back for seventh show with Chichester Festival Youth Theatre

Olivia Dickens is relishing her seventh show with Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Cinderella on the main-house stage from December 17-31.

Transcript

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.