She sighs loudly when I ask her about the problems associated with child stars “I absolutely loathe the words `star’ and `fame’ I won’t allow them in theatre. I tell my children that acting is like dentistry, it’s just a job of work, and they have to earn their success. Of course it’s a precarious profession but that’s why you mustn’t put them on pedestals or put them under pressure. Star status can unhinge, so I have no time for media hype.” Scher will not let her students do any advertising or modelling: “I don’t want children to be known for their cute looks, or for others to feel marginalised.”All of which is in stark contrast to America.

“It seems a very good law, brought in because of problems in Hollywood. We’re not so paranoid about the A-list or B-list as they are in the States, and we simply don’t have the money over here. Our children are like any others, not all wearing make-up with ringlets and ribbons.”Anna Scher established her own children’s theatre 30 years ago to offer opportunities to working-class kids; in that time it has become the opposite of the “beautiful people” ethic. With the likes of Kathy Burke, Pauline Quirk and Patsy Palmer amongst its alumni (the rump of Eastenders were pupils at one time), the waiting list for enrolment is 3,500 long. My friends are really pleased, and my whole school are coming to see it in London.”It’s probably hard for such success to go to your head whilst doing previews in Bromley rather than Beverley Hills: the adulation at the curtain call, says Charlene, “is slightly strange”. According to conventional wisdom, the career trajectory of a child star is drug addiction, an eating disorder, then, most painful of all, abject obscurity. If you don’t die young (River Phoenix, or Little Bobby Driscoll), you grow up dysfunctional (Michael Jackson, Drew Barrymore).

Chances are you’ll make a bad marriage too young (Elizabeth Taylor and, presumably, Macaulay Culkin), or too late (the fading starlets Brooke Shields and Tatum O’Neal banked on the reflected glory of tennis pros Andre Agassi and John McEnroe).In the early days of Hollywood, having a pre-pubescent starlet made box-office success a certainty. In every silent movie there was always a vulnerable waif, dangerously close to coercion or seduction, only to be rescued at the final scene. The audience, cooing and oohing, lapped up this image of innocence, but it was soon shown to be a sham.When the film director William Desmond Taylor was murdered in 1922, the young Mary Miles Minter’s nightgown was found in his closet, and he had, in all probability, supplied another nymphet, Mabel Normand, with cocaine-filled peanuts. The innocence was further sullied by Charlie Chaplin, who took various child brides (including Lilita McMurray, whose name inspired Nabokov’s Lolita); like Errol Flynn and later Roman Polanski, Chaplin enjoyed the underaged.Our distaste for child stars is now based firmly on Nineties puritanism, and our concern about fetishising pre-pubescents: a three-year-old Jodie Foster baring her bottom in an ad for tanning lotion, the nude childhood poses of Shields and Natassia Kinski, seemingly au naturel in the Seventies, now come across as dangerously close to kiddie porn. Graham Greene said the same about the all-singing, all-dancing Shirley Temple in 1937, accusing Twentieth Century Fox of “procuring” her for “immoral purposes” (he had to pay a hefty compensation).There is also the cloying mawkishness which we can no longer stomach.

“Payments have to be made out to the children, and one-third legally has to be banked until their 16th birthday,” says Sheward. And the babies in most films you see will be twins so they can be rotated during the filming.Gaynor Sheward runs the Italia Conti agency which has produced such luminaries as Louise, Patsy Kensit, Naomi Campbell and Leslie Ash. And, jealous of such people in their prime, we eagerly await the acne, puppy fat and tabloid revelations of a dangerous addiction.So goes, at least, the very conventional wisdom But the reality, in Britain at least, is different. It is obvious that the protection of children in the industry is thorough; only last month legislation was passed such that children must have a licence to work (they were previously allowed four days work every six months unlicensed). There is a statutory maximum of six hours a day, and 40 days performing a year, for children; and if they are going abroad to work they must visit Bow Street magistrates court and report to the embassy when they arrive. But most of all, now that we know children, too, can be killers and rapists, the high-pitched voices, the dimples and curls and coquettish smiles, are less appealing. “Sometimes,” she adds, “I do wish I could go on holiday,” but she clearly enjoys her work “I have played Annie before.

I really like her character because she’s tough and determined to find her parents It’s exciting and fun being on stage. Barton, while rightfully proud after seeing her daughter fend off competition from 1,000 other hopefuls, is far from the pushy mother of myth. “Charlene’s enjoying it at the moment and that’s all that matters. The company has a children’s administrator, and I act as her chaperone, chauffeur and entourage The pay isn’t exorbitant We’re certainly not doing it for the money. Charlene’s very astute and she knows that education is a priority.”Charlene, a Manchester United supporter, is far from being a prima donna.