I am an 18-year-old college student. I have lived in the heart of Brighton and Hove all my life.

I attend Blatchington Mill sixth form of performing arts, belong to Brighton Theatre Group and Clique Dance group. It’s safe to say I am passionate about all things dramatic.

Last month, I spent a week performing Grease at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, alongside 68 other Brighton youths who love nothing more than to perform on stage, and of whom most plan to go into the theatre business.

During a break, the topic of the West End came into conversation and why Brighton does not cater to touring shows.

We all agreed how much we’d thrive from West End tours coming to Brighton, and wished we could help to make this happen.

Rather than guessing what the next generation of Brighton would like, I’ll let you know. It is not another over priced cinema – having been to the Odeon once in the past six months to an audience of six on the opening night of a bad remake of Godzilla.

It is a theatre, a proper theatre, that can handle the amazing West End shows that the rest of England get, the shows that have inspired me and others to be creative, outgoing, passionate and expressive.

Speaking for myself and the vast variety of people between 11 and 25 I work, train, sing and dance with every day, I can assure you turning the Brighton Hippodrome into a cinema will do little for Brighton’s growing theatre scene.

I cannot begin to describe the excitement creating a West End theatre would create in the city.

Please give us a theatre that can inspire Brighton’s next generation, not another cinema showing a giant lizard running around China.

 

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