SHAKESPEARE'S Romeo and Juliet was brought to life by children at Buckland Monachorum's St Andrew's C of E Primary School recently, where Year 6 pupils took on the playwright adapting and rewriting elements of the famous play.

Pupils mesmerised audiences in two performances with their rendition of the play, using original Shakespearean English.

The children have been studying Romeo and Juliet in literacy and designed and made their costumes in design and technology. Dressed in outfits of vibrant gold, silks and velvets, tie-dyed gowns and ornate hand-made Venetian masks, the audiences were most impressed.

The school hall transformed from a palace's great ballroom to the streets of Verona with swordsmen and a balcony being the perfect place for Romeo played by Fred Williams and Juliet played by Anna Derry, to take centre stage.

Deputy headteacher Justin Jones said: 'The children went into overdrive spending a lot of time learning difficult Shakespearean lines, working on diction and understanding of the plot.

'In our literacy lessons children thought carefully, contextualising the story for the world today and this has been an amazing enrichment to their learning.'