YOUNGSTERS who have been working hard at an Easter youth theatre project will be taking to the stage to perform for family and friends this weekend.

The Horse and Bamboo Youth Theatre is enjoying its ninth season of activities and was started out of a growing interest shown by local young people in the professional touring work the theatre has become renowned for.

Using masks, puppets, shadow puppets and music, the Horse and Bamboo creates a very distinctive and visual theatre and the youth theatre members will be using the same medium to devise their piece of theatre. Jenny Brent and Alison Sharkey led the project.

Jenny has a long history with Horse and Bamboo, having both worked as a youth project leader and as a professional performer with the touring productions. Alison travelled from Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, to work with the youth theatre, and has worked with young people all over the Western Isles on arts-based projects.

The project has been developed around an icy arctic adventure, in which the main characters set off to explore the frozen snowy wastes.

Jenny said: "Whether they return to tell the tale or not is another matter. The piece is being totally devised by the members, and it is up to them how the story unfolds. The only thing we have as yet is a title and that's 'The Daring Adventures Of The Ice Fool'."

The group has consisted entirely of girls, which, says Andrew Rawlinson, Horse and Bamboo's arts and programme manager, is most unusual, as generally there is a good handful of boys wanting to be involved.

If anyone wants to find out information about future youth theatre projects, they can contact Andrew on 01706 220241.