Have You Seen Carrie Hope Fletcher on stage yet?

It's rare to be very good at many things. Very rare. And it takes a lot more than talent. It takes hard work. Carrie Hope Fletcher is an actress, singer, vlogger and author. Before you get too impressed please know that upon meeting her, Carrie is also an incredibly vivacious, polite and humble individual who didn't shy away from any of our questions. We think the best words we could use to describe Carrie is incredibly passionate. And it's that passion whether it be for the theatre, her followers or for writing stories is really the secret that drives her.

To start off, if you haven't seen her in Les Misérables, you need to get up right now (well, after you've read the rest of this story) and book a ticket. Not only will you be able to see the wonder that is the new Dubai Opera House (we've been there and it's mindbogglingly beautiful) you'll also get to see Carrie and a talented cast act and sing their way into your hearts. Now, after you've booked your tickets head over to YouTube and check out Carrie's YouTube channel ItsWayPastMyBedTime. Performing covers of songs, filming bits and pieces of her daily life and news on upcoming projects, Carrie is a delight to watch . . . and read. Yup, she's a writer too. You'll find her first novel, On The Other Side at Kinokuniya at the Dubai Mall and if you want our opinion it's a definite page-turner.

Actress, singer, vlogger, writer with so many hats at her disposal which one does Carrie feel fits her best?
"When I'm writing, I'm a writer and when I'm on stage I'm an actress and when I'm singing I'm a singer," she told City Times, "It's whatever I'm doing at the time takes priority."
For a short while we were pleased that we were her priority as she took time out of her incredibly busy schedule (just a few hours before she was set to go on stage) to talk to us about performing, writing her first novel and that sometimes controversial word, feminism.
Carrie in Dubai
This is Carrie's first time in Dubai. And the city along with the new Dubai Opera house, and the audiences who have been coming in droves to watch her and the incredibly talented cast of Les Misérables have impressed her.
"It's been unbelievable, everything is just so big an impressive. It's unlike anywhere I've ever been before. The Dubai Opera is unbelievable, it's huge, and its just wonderfully modern and it's got great facilities back stage which a lot of London theaters don't have because they are so old. The audiences have been so warm and welcoming. I think London audiences are sometimes quite tough, they are quite hard to get through. But everyone here has been laughing and crying in all the right places and on their feet the end, every single night."
It's all about the music
Les Misérables is one of the longest running and popular musicals of all time. Victor Hugo's epic novel about the French revolution and all the people who were affected has had majour success on the stage and screen. Is there a reason why the story still speaks to audiences today?
"Firstly the music. Music is a universal language. So if there is a language barrier the music conveys the emotions of the stories and the songs so well that anyone can understand. And the songs are just so wonderfully written but also, there are so many characters and so many character lines. There is a character for everyone and they all have such varying story lines that there isn't anyway someone can go see and not relate to someone.
Being Eponine
Carrie plays the role of Eponine, a character whose story in Les Misérables is not only heartbreaking, but also about change and becoming the best you can be.
"I think a lot of people have been in that situation where you like someone or you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back. It's a very universal emotion and feeling. Eponine is a lot feistier than I am (laughs). There are a lot of ways that I don't relate to her, because she had an unbelievably tough life. She's got awful parents who make her do awful thing but at the heart of it she's an incredibly good person who just wants to be loved and do good in the world. So everyone has that struggle where you want to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be."
In no way through her performance did we ever get the sense that Carrie is acting. She is always there, present, vulnerable and genuine despite the fact that she and her cast mates have played the same role, repeated the same lines night after night.
"You have to keep yourself awake and in it all the time to make the story as convincing as possible. It's a lot of fun trying to challenge ourselves every night to find something new in a character that you've been playing for so long. And these characters are so intricate and complex and diverse that we are able to find something new every night. As soon as one person on stage plays something differently it means that everyone has to react differently."
Playing Eponine is, in a way, coming full circle for Carrie. Given that it was this very show that inspired her to get into theater we can only imagine what a delight it must be part of this epic musical.
"When I was three years old, my mum won tickets to go see Les Misérables and took me to see it. That was sort of where my love for musical theatre was born. That's why Les Misérables is so important to me and why I've been fighting so long to be in this show.
The Online Stage
For those of you who don't know, off the stage Carrie already has hundreds of thousands of followers all over the world. Other than performing on the physical stage, you can see Carrie on the online stage. Her YouTube channel ItsWayPastMyBedTime, has been an unexpected surprise that has amassed her a massive following.
"It's a happy accident, as I've always said. I started just posting one cover a month just for fun, cause why not? People were doing that I thought it would be a nice creative thing to do. I realized that there was this community of YouTubers who, did this for a living and I made friends with a few of them. They suggested chatting and talking to an audience instead of just singing. So I gave it a go and it just snowballed and I ended up with a very large audience."
Carrie enjoys that instant connection with fans. But there is of course that dark side of the Internet lurking one scroll, one comment away to bring you down. We've all been told to ignore bullies and they will just go away. But is that always the case though? Carrie has an interesting approach to trolls. When a few trolls made a comment about her body Carrie made a point to post a photograph of herself in a bikini  to blatantly say, this is who I am, deal with it. So when is the right time to ignore or make a statement?
"I think when it affects more people than just me that's when I feel like I should say something. Cause I know there are lots of people, there are a lot of young females especially who are engaged with what I do online. If they see me being beaten down by someone who has a negative opinion they think they have to also be beaten down. If I feel like it affects more people then just me or if I can stand up for more people than just myself then I definitely should and will."
Carrie on Feminisim
Given that Carrie has a strong young female following it was only natural of us to ask her about a word whose meaning and associations has taken on different personas and inclinations to people and society over that last few decades. Feminism.
"I'm absolutely a feminist. Absolutely, 100 percent there is no question about it. It's equality for women and men it's just this idea that women can do exactly what men can do and I don't see why anyone wouldn't be a feminist. I think there is a group of people in this world who feel like it's about being anti men or anti male rather than us all being equal. I think people are scared to use that term because of how other people will react to it. It started to have negative connotation. I think as long as we all fight for equality rather than dragging anyone down, that word can only become good."
Carrie on Writing
Earlier this year Carrie's first work of fiction came out. On the Other Side is her first foray into novel writing and has an interesting premise that almost instantly compels the reader to keep turning the page.
"I was on tour with a show called War of the Worlds and I couldn't get to sleep until like 2 in the morning. And I just kind of half dreamt up this idea of a women who couldn't get into her personal heaven after she had passed away at the age of 82. It just amused me this idea of this women who had spent her whole life keeping secrets that the only way she could pass on into the after life is by revealing those secrets. So I got up and wrote it down, filled four pages of a note book with this idea and then finally went to bed. I'd completely forgotten that I'd written it down. Then a few days later opened my notebook and found this idea and though, hmmm that could actually work."
The writing process is incredibly different from acting singing or creating a video. It requires a lot discipline and downtime away from everyone but like most good writers, Carrie enjoyed the process.
"I love creating new stories and new worlds. I loved that it was limitless and there were no boundaries that I could do within the worlds that I was creating because its not real. And I just really enjoyed that. There were a couple of moments, where I felt a bit stuck. I plan the big events and then I start writing the journeys between those big events. I write as I go so there were a few moments where I felt like I've lost my way a little bit and didn't know where I was going but it was easy to get back on track.
For someone so young we can't help but wonder how Carrie actually forced herself to sit down to do the laborious job of writing a novel when most people her age are out partying. What motivates her?
"It's just if you want it done it's got to be done. I talked for years about writing a book but a book isn't going to write itself. If I want to write a book I've got to sit down and write it and it was that one thought that triggered me into sitting down, and I thought, OK if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this and I wrote 40,000 words of a novel that never saw the light of day and probably never will (laughs)."