Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2009 | Page 23

PROPERTY

life

Alison Eade

Life’s a stage and Charlotte
is sure-footed on it
Roz Whistance meets an actress, singer and writer of remarkable talent
Charlotte Barton-Hoare talks about her
achievements as most of us might take credit
for our hairstyle. We’ve taken what we’ve
been given – long, short, straight or curly –
and done what we can with it. Simple.
Charlotte is an actress, a singer and a
writer, who has performed in places as
disparate as Hong Kong and New York.
She has just triumphed as Eliza Dolittle in
a production of My Fair Lady at Shanklin
Theatre, and her off-the-wall musical
double-hander Creena deFoouie has just
returned to the Quay Arts Theatre due
to popular demand. She is beautiful,
exudes enthusiasm by the bucketful and
is compellingly likeable. “I like to think
I’m a positive person” has to be up there
for understatement with President Nixon’s
comment about the Great Wall of China:
“This is a great wall.”

That she lists her achievements so
matter-of-factly should not, perhaps, be
so much of a surprise, because she is the
daughter of artist Judith Barton (see Issue
18). Self-belief, the ability to step away from
the diktats of society to allow creativity to
flourish, these ideals, championed by Judith,
are being lived out by her daughter.
Charlotte made her stage debut at Shanklin
Theatre at the age of eight, and joined the
National Youth Musical Theatre at 16. She
trained in musical theatre at the prestigious
Guildford School of Acting, graduating in
2000, when she did a Masters degree in
creative writing: “I’d never done any writing
before, but I was sure I could.” She could
indeed – she graduated with a distinction.
Having begun her theatrical career at
such a young vR6