THEATRE students were urged to express their feelings towards their home town in an art workshop yesterday.

The youngsters from Stockton Sixth Form were taking part in an experiment organised by artist Adrian Moule to focus on what they thought about the identity of Stockton.

First the students were encouraged to draw on a massive blank canvas their thoughts about the town.

Those ideas were developed and the theatre and drama students eventually had to mime or act out ways of expressing the identity of the town.

Teacher Fiona Kirby said: "It's been very difficult for them as it's a totally different way of looking at theatre, but it's helping them to think in a totally new way."

She said that the idea was to capture some of the essence of the town before it changed further after multi-million projects beginning with the Northbank property development later this year.

Mr Moule, who works with the arts group Hypothalamus, said: "We have created an 'ideas space' based on our experiences of Stockton and are recording how participants respond. There may be strange juxtapositions or mime, we just don't know at this stage, which is why it is so interesting."