Three budding actors from Melksham’s King’s Park Academy are treading the boards in London next month in a new play written by their drama teacher.

School drama club co-ordinator and Year 4 teacher Scott Carpenter has written and directed The Huldra’s Song to be performed at London’s LOST Theatre on May 31.

He will appear in the one-act play alongside professional actress Jessica Buxton, who has been in the television soap Emmerdale, and Year Six pupils Rachel Organ, Eleanor Holder and Casey Davis.

The pupils started rehearsals last week in the school hall.

Mr Carpenter said: “I have just done a drama club at school called the King’s Park Shakespeare Company, where we did Macbeth.

“They did a fantastic job, and they were three kids in the production that I saw as potentially being in this play.

“They are extremely excited. For all of them Macbeth was their first experience of acting.”

Mr Carpenter, who studied drama at Bath Spa University, wrote the play in three weeks during a school holiday.

The dark fairy tale is inspired by the Scandinavian legend of the Huldra, a woodland spirit with an animal’s tail.

He said: “I started seriously writing plays in university.

“It is difficult with teaching – this is my first play in about three years, but the idea for the play was in my head for the last year and a half. I had been getting into Scandinavian music when I got the idea.

“At first I didn’t know what to do with it; at one point is was going to be a children’s book, but then the plans for this play came together.”

The show will be performed as part of the theatre’s One Act Festival on May 31.

Mr Carpenter said: “They are extremely excited, and their families are really pleased. There are 21 plays in the festival, and we’ll get a chance to see a few of them.

“There is the chance of other directors of theatres coming along to watch, so if it goes well it could get picked up to run elsewhere.”

To book tickets, visit www.losttheatre.co.uk or call 0207 720 6897.