STUDENTS flicked a switch on their acting abilities with a performance that turned traditional lighting upside down.

Performers from Barnard Castle School staged the Black Comedy which saw them staggering around the stage in the light pretending it was dark.

The culmination of months of rehearsals, the slapstick play traces the antics of a young artist and his fiancée who borrow furniture from a neighbour without permission to impress her father and a millionaire art collector.

Packed houses enjoyed three comical performances by a cast comprising Lottie Newnam, Rohan Kelsall, Ceara Sutton-Jones, Alex Fawcett, Gen Myhan, Kieran Lewis, Will Liquorice and George Spink.

Director Scott Edwards said: “I was incredibly proud of the cast. Comedy is a very difficult art form and the students did a simply brilliant job with a complicated script, fantastic comic timing and an extremely physical performance that earned them some impressive bruises.

"I’m sure everyone involved will remember Black Comedy as being one of the school’s classic productions.”