A FORMER pit village was the unlikely setting for a Bollywood blockbuster, featuring local youngsters alongside some of Indian cinema's biggest stars.

Picturesque and full of character it may be, but Fishburn, near Sedgefield, County Durham, is hardly the kind of all-singing, all-dancing setting in which one would expect to see a Bollywood production.

But on Sunday, filming for children's comedy Hari Puttar took place at Fishburn Airfield, its 600m by 30m grass runway used for a scene involving a light aircraft.

Bollywood only produces a handful of children's films a year, and some of the Indian film industry's biggest names, such as Saurabh Shukla and 12-year-old child star Zen Khan, who plays Hari Puttar, were on the set.

John Morgan, who owns the airfield, said that he was surprised when they asked to film there, but it was a request he was happy to accept.

"They phoned about a fortnight ago, and then came down," he said. "They just turned up out of the blue and said they wanted to do a shot of a couple of characters coming off the plane.

"I don't know who put them in touch, but it was nice having them here."

Some filming also took place in Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire, on Monday.

The scene at Fishburn saw Shukla's evil character touch down at the airport, expecting a limousine to pick him up - only for a Smart car to arrive instead.

The angry villain vents his frustrations by stealing a Mars bar from a young girl, played by five-year-old Lucy Robertshaw.

She was one of three local youngsters used as extras, along with her brother Tom, 11, friend Robbie Morgan, nine, and his mother, Jane.

Lucy said that she enjoyed appearing in front of the cameras and would like to be an actress one day.

Her mother, Anne-Marie, said: "They were going to use Robbie, but the director decided it would be cuter to have a girl.

"The children couldn't get over how nice the actor playing the bad guy was. He asked them about their schools and wasn't like the character he played at all."

The film is inevitably causing controversy before it is even released because of the title's resemblance to Harry Potter.

The movie is due to be released in March next year