TAVISTOCK College students brought Italian street theatre to the town recently, in a community play inspired by a story in the Times.

Students Kirsty Woodward, Fran Eatley, Katie Cox, Gabrielle Davies and Toby Jasper performed Mayhem in the Meadows — an AS level community performance project — on the town's bandstand.

Gabrielle said: 'We started with a Tavistock Times article about a Peter Tavy love triangle 118 years ago and used the story as inspiration for our Commedia D'el Arte style performance.'

The genre portrays political, historical or cultural issues in a comical way with slapstick humour and is heavily improvised.

Katie said the students created mind maps and took part in workshops to involve themselves in the style and characters before evolving the performance.

Teacher Eva Pearson said: 'The students had to perform outside and it rained all day. They ran round the Meadows bringing people in and ended up with an audience of nearly 40 people who stood there in the rain and watched.

'It was improvised in relation to the audience just like Italian street theatre. One of the best things was the fun they had doing the performance and the fact they started playing tricks on each other.

'At the end Toby had to put a bucket on his head to represent drowning. In the final show the others filled it with water so when he tipped it up he got drenched. It was very funny and really showed they understood the style of Commedia D'el Arte.'

Gabrielle said there was always the danger of the audience not staying as they could walk away whenever they wanted so the students had to work hard to keep them entertained.

'It was good fun even though the process was stressful,' said Katie. 'I would like to thank the audience for standing in the rain watching.'