Seasoned child actor from Horsham who appeared on Sky with pet rabbit Charles Dickens will take to the stage in Southwick Players' historical drama A Tale of Two Cities

The youngest member of the cast, due to appear at The Barn Theatre in Southwick in December, Graci Hanlon-Field named her pet rabbit Charles Dickens after falling in love with the story of Oliver Twist at a tender age.

The pair get on well and their antics featured on Sky Kids TV four years ago, when Graci was just eight and Charles two.

Mum Emma said: "He was on Play Your Pets Right with Graci and had to complete some challenges against another rabbit. It was very funny as he didn't co-operate."

Now an 'old man' of six, recalcitrant Charles would probably have stood little chance of being cast in A Tale of Two Cities, unlike Graci, already a seasoned child actor.

The Southwick Players Youth (SPY) member's professional TV credits include Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle, mastermind of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, and Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Graci is playing the key role of one of the revolutionaries, Jacques I, in the peasants' uprising against the French aristocracy.

Directed by Ron Common, assisted by Kate Armes, and with a Bastille-storming cast of nearly 30, A Tale of Two Cities runs at the Barn Theatre, Southwick, from December 6 to 9. Box office: 0333 666 3366 Online: southwickplayers.org.uk

Graci is looking forward to the performance and Emma says her daughter hopes life might one day imitate art, as she harbours ambitions to be a human rights lawyer.