Celebrating 20 years of Chichester Festival Youth Theatre at Christmas

It all started with The Wizard Of Oz in 2003; it continues with The Jungle Book this year. Along the way there have been many, many highlights, not least Pinocchio which managed to triumph amid all the miseries of the pandemic.

Dale Rooks, director of learning, education and participation at Chichester Festival Theatre, has directed around three-quarters of the shows across the two decades: “And long may it continue. There is nothing more magical than seeing a group of young people take to the stage at Christmas and provide really, really high-quality work. They rise to the challenge. They're really lucky to be given an exceptional resource at the theatre, the same resource that we would give to any other show in the festival. And I think that’s unique about Chichester Festival Theatre. But the fact is that they rise to the challenge fantastically.