Teenager will stand alongside top comedians

A teenage actress is performing alongside Bill Bailey and Jimmy Carr in a charity show for the hospice which cared for her dying cousin.

Katie Dale has spent weeks preparing a cabaret act for Sunday's variety show in Oxford, which will feature a cast of comedians and singers all clubbing together to perform in aid of Helen and Douglas House.

Katie, 15, contacted the organisers last year to ask if she could perform in memory of her cousin Bethany Clist.

The nine-year-old was admitted to the hospice three years ago after suddenly falling ill, and died just days later.

Katie, who goes to Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead and lives in Charvil, said: "It was a tough time. It's even worse that it was a child who had to go through it, and it's still hard today.
"It gets easier but it never goes away.

"She was the sort of little girl who if she saw someone playing in the playground on their own she would always go up to them and say, 'do you want to join in with the game?'"

Katie has twice applied for the ITV show Britain's Got Talent, and also plans to try and sing her way onto an X-Factor audition in front of Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne.