Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2009 | Page 24

life

INTERVIEW

heard her powerfully rich singing voice or
seen her perform could – but because she
wears the achievement so lightly. She seems
undaunted by anything, and admits she
doesn’t suffer from self doubt or from social
shyness. “It sounds so arrogant to say I could
meet the queen and be perfectly ok, but I’m
not afraid in any social situation.”
Her open, mobile face and sheer
exuberance could give the impression
of a Polyanna – that fictional child who
insisted on looking on the bright side of
every mawkishly dire event. “I believe in
the Universal Law of Attraction,” she says,
recommending everyone read The Secret
by its exponent , Rhonda Byrne.“The
Law says what we think about, we bring
about. So if we believe, we can achieve.”
Therefore Charlotte embraces the possibility
in everything, and believes she can achieve
any goal she sets herself. And she is not
unworldly. Creena-defoouie, as well as being
an off-the-wall play described by the BBC as
‘surreal and humorous with a clever twist’,
doesn’t hold back from raw language and
near-the-knuckle humour.
A play to be staged in September “which
I’ve got to finish writing,” she says with
masterly casualness, has a title at least: “A

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Musical Eve with the Man-Haters”, subtitled
“Get your platinum cards out boys, we’re
expensive!” “It’s a musical review really,
which I’m performing with my good friend
and singing teacher Samantha Howard –
she’s a fantastic soprano.”
Even her continuing singing lessons
with Samantha are a source of wonder to
Charlotte, because she’s discovering changes
and new depths to her voice. Rather than
labelling herself a soprano or contralto she
describes herself as “a belter. I really belt
out the songs, which is great for musical
theatre.” But Eliza Dolittle had to find some
pretty high notes, so Charlotte thinks she
might be borderline soprano.
She doesn’t have much time for pop songs,
nor does she appreciate the watery style
most pop girlies like to employ. She prefers
the depth and stories involved in those songs
from musical theatre, and it was a selection
of these that she sang at a celebratory
evening recently hosted by Island solicitor
Terry Willey.
Her love for musical theatre was fostered
by the National Youth Music Theatre, where
she and her brother James built up some
lasting relationships with directors Jeremy
James Taylor and Frank Whately.”They liked

me and James, so kept having us back,” she
says – that was after getting through stiff
competition in the initial auditions. “I met
Prince Edward when I was in Pendragon (a
play about King Arthur) and years later he
recognised me.”
Charlotte isn’t star-struck by the people
she’s met and worked with, more enthused
by their interest. The only flicker of ‘what if
…” comes when she mentions that the actor
Hugh Bonneville said she’s going to be a star.
“And here I am, a teacher!”
She is indeed a teacher, teaching Drama at
Sandown High School, but for Charlotte this
doesn’t mean her career is in the sidings. She
loves teaching her pupils, who are “fantastic
and talented”: as well as the standard
curriculum work she has coached pupils in
the London Academy of Music and Dramatic
Art (LAMDA) exams, which involve speaking
prose and poetry, Shakespeare dialogue and
dualogue, and, with her mother, is intending
to offer private LAMDA tuition to adults
and children. For the past two years she has
coached pupils very successfully for the Isle
of Wight Speech and Drama Festival, which
takes place in March. “The head teacher,
Mr John Bradshaw, is so supportive, as is
the school’s head of performing arts – my

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