'Honour' to perform Suffragettes musical at Fringe

A special performance took place last week at Westbourne House School, where Miss Perry was once a pupil

A teenager says it is the "biggest honour" to take a musical she began writing at the age of 13 to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Phoebe Perry will perform 'Vote', an original production comprising a cast of 15 young actors, which explores the Suffragette movement.

The 18-year-old from Chichester says she is fulfilling a lifelong ambition by performing at the arts festival she believes is the "biggest" in the world.

"The Fringe is super exciting - it was a childhood dream of mine to take a show up there," she told BBC Radio Sussex.

Vote follows three middle-class women and is set around the 1908 Hyde Park rally

A long-time member of the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Miss Perry said having "such a hub of creativity and theatricality" on her doorstep served as motivation as she crafted the musical.

While writing 'Vote' was no easy feat, she feels it has been a really important exercise.

"When I started, I actually didn't know anything about the Suffragettes," she said.

"The more and more I began to learn and realise and research, I realised how necessary it was for people my age - and especially young girls - to be educated on the topic."

Focusing on the fictional Mary Abbott, 'Vote' follows three middle-class women as they discover the Suffragette movement.

Set around the 1908 Hyde Park rally, the story highlights Mary's arrest, prison abuse and eventual release, leading to electoral equality decades later.

Miss Perry has been preparing for this Fringe run since two debut performances last October at Hurstpierpoint College.

"It's been about ten months of admin, but it's going to make it all worth it because it is the biggest arts festival in the world," she said.

Performances of 'Vote' will take place at 11:00 BST each day from Monday until Friday, at Paradise in Augustines.