Zoe Hinks is a playwright, director, performer, theatre maker and artivist. She founded Sabotage Theatre Company after graduating from East 15 Acting School in 2008

What is your favourite place in Sussex?

Devil’s Dyke. I grew up on Romney Marsh so always have a craving for flat land and large skies, but when I discovered the downs I learned the joy of a rolling landscape. I’m a country girl at heart.

What do you love most about living in Sussex?

I love how the houses are painted the colour of ice cream, all stacked in little rows up the hills. It’s something particular to seaside towns of the southeast.

What advice do you have for your 12-year-old self?

What makes you an outsider now will make you stronger, and eventually you will see it’s not a bad thing to stand out.

What is your most valued possession?

I’m a real womble and love up-cycling things I’ve found on the street or in skips. Once I found a bag of beautiful silk which I made into costumes, it’s amazing what people throw away. I was given a sewing machine for my 18th birthday and I still use it all the time 17 years later, so that would probably be on my desert island list.

What is your biggest regret?

The times I’ve forgotten to have fun.

What is your biggest fear?

That one day I will stop being a theatre artist. I also have an acute phobia of gyms.

What is your proudest achievement?

Ten years after graduating I am still making plays. My work is still rubbing some people up the wrong way. I haven’t lost the joy, I haven’t lost the fight. And every year I am discovering new ways to communicate through puppets, masks, writing, and performance. Also passing my driving test, it took me nine times.

Which five people (living or dead) would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

Charlie Chaplin, Nell Gwyn, Rik Mayall, George Ransley (of the Aldington Gang of smugglers) and Queen Boudicca

Anything else?

We will be performing The Looker at The Spiegeltent during the Fringe. It is a play about being lost. Bewilderment is often my prevailing response to the modern age.