SCHOOL children are set to join professional ballet dancers on stage as part of a new fairytale performance.

Students from Firthmoor Primary School in Darlington have been specially chosen to join dancers from theatre company balletLORENT in a performance of a brand new fairytale, The Lost Happy Endings, written by former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and performed at the Darlington Hippodrome.

Year 3 Teacher at Firthmoor, Vicky Morrow said the project gave the 15 children chosen to take part, seven boys and eight girls between Year 3-5, a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to perform with a professional dance company.

She said: "Dancers from balletLorent came into the school to hold workshops with the children.

"Everyone was encouraged to take part, whether they had prior dance experience or not. The company were interested in the children's stage presence, character and their acting or improvisation techniques - rather than their dance skills.

"At one point they gave them a pillow and asked them to re-enact a bad dream for example. They just wanted to see children being children."

Ms Morrow said that all the chosen children, and their parents, were "ecstatic" to be part of the production.

Directed and choreographed Liv Lorent (MBE) with narration by Joanna Lumley,The Lost Happy Endings tells the story of about a magical girl called Jub who lives deep in the forest, and whose job it is to guard the happy endings to fairytales. But when a otherworldly witch steals the happy endings chaos erupts.

Goldilocks changed the locks on the cottage of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood is gobbled up by the wolf and Cinderella’s foot is now too big for the glass slipper. It is up to Jub to save the night, with help from some familiar fairytale faces.

The Lost Happy Endings runs on Saturday 22 at 7.30pm and Sunday 23 February at 2.30pm.