The Hour

She’s best known as the quirky girl who performed on the X Factor stage barefoot, but Diana Vickers has come a long, long way since her time on the programme.

Following her successful stint on the 2008 series of the talent show, during which she reached week nine of the contest, the 18-year-old took on a starring role in the West End production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

It was an opportunity that arose by chance for Diana, and one that ultimately proved to be a good move for the rising starlet.

She explained: “I did the X Factor Tour and I got signed straight after, and I was literally doing my writing on my album for about seven months.

“And then Jim Cartwright (the writer) approached me for the role of Little Voice, and I was like ‘oh wow, West End, I can’t turn this down’. And I’d already waited seven months writing, another (thought) four months isn’t going to do any harm. It helped me grown and got me really prepared and excited for my album, so it all worked out really nicely.”

Diana’s role in the production won her rave reviews, but her music career is the stunning teen’s main focus now – and making it big in the industry has been something she’s been dreaming of for a long time now.

“…when I was younger people would say ‘what do you want to be’, and I would say ‘a singer, it’s just going to happen’, and I sort of knew, I had a feeling it would happen to me one day but I didn’t know when,” she said. “But never in a million years did I think I would be 18 and it would all be happening. It’s crazy, sometimes I have to just pinch myself.”

Diana’s debut album, Songs From the Tainted Cherry Tree  - which she co-wrote, working with big names including Cathy Dennis - is released on May 3, with the debut single, Once, out on April 19. Find out more about the star from her website.