This week, we had A Conversation With... Charlie Thomas. Anyone who has attended any of our music concerts will know that Charlie is a natural-born performer in the Music and Drama departments, and has come a long way since joining the School in 2013.
What does your average day entail?
I tend to arrive at School at about 7.30am, to give me 30 minutes to get everything ready for the day and to speak to my Housemaster Mr Rose to see if there are any duties that need doing in house. Then I have check before going to my morning lessons. I’d come back to Welsh House at break or go to Lower School where I am a member of the peer support. After break, I have more lessons or I might be in Music or Drama rehearsals, or meetings for peer support and prefects. I’ll eat at about 12.30pm, then spend the afternoon doing drama or music activities, or sport, depending on what day it is. I tend to stay for Day prep until 5.30pm and then go home and do more prep or I might just chill out!
What has been your favourite performance while you’ve been at Shiplake?
I think that my favourite performance would be last year’s Winter Concert, where I performed a Beatles medley with the Senior Covers Band. My most memorable was the first concert I ever performed a solo in, in Year 9. That gave me the platform to continue on the journey that I have had here. Mr Curran had recently joined the College so he was giving me a lot of opportunities to join new bands and choirs and to start singing lessons. That happened at the same time that I was thinking about GCSE options, so doing those songs in that concert really helped me make the decision to study Music.
Who or what are your biggest musical inspirations?
That’s a tough question! I am inspired by musical theatre, but I would say that my main influence is a British actor and singer called Ben Forster. He’s been in every single musical that I want to be in, like Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and Les Misérables. I look up to him because he has had the exact career that I would love to have. The thing that inspires me to do music is the way that it can tell a story in a different way.
In what ways do you think you’ve grown while at Shiplake?
Shiplake has really helped me to boost my academic grades, but also to become a better person. When I was in Lower School, I was such a monkey! I was naughty and I was a bit of a class clown, but when GCSEs came, I realised that it was time to knuckle down. My old Housemaster Mr Howorth, who was also my Geography teacher in Year 9 and my Housemaster in Lower School, helped me through those five years and told me that I needed to knuckle down. He also gave me a lot of opportunities and recommended things for me to do outside of school. That’s when I started volunteering at things like the Henley Youth Festival, for which I was in the Henley Standard, which was really cool! Shiplake has helped me to gain a much more mature perspective.
What is your favourite subject and who is your favourite teacher?
This is a really tough question. It alternates every week between Drama and Music, I don’t think I can choose between the two. My favourite teacher… hmmm… that would probably be Mr. Miller, the Drama teacher.
What does the future hold for Charlie Thomas?
I’ll finish my A Levels in Drama, Media and Music here, and then hopefully take on a performing arts degree at university, or combine Drama with Film Studies. I’ve been looking around universities, which is exciting, but I’ll hopefully end up on the stage at some point.
