A group of Camden youngsters will be drawing from their own experiences of knife crime next week, when they perform a modern twist on Lorca’s Blood Wedding play.

The pupils, from the LaSWAP in Camden, will be treading the boards for two nights at RADA. They are taking the 1932 play about a mother's fear that her son will meet the same fate as his father and be stabbed to death, and putting it into a 2019 London context. The music and clothes will be taken from the modern day, rather than of the era. The original text of the play is being kept, and will be rapped and spoken.

The road names where young people have been killed in the capital this year will be on the back wall of the set.

According to Sarah O'Keefe, who is directing the production, performing the play has reminded the pupils of the futility of knife crime.

She said: "We could have set it in beautiful rural Spanish countryside, but this is happening every day in our streets in London. They have had experiences of or have witnessed something, it's quite scary.

"The students have been talking about it and how [knife crime] is a futile waste of a life, and that it's becoming normal. It's about addressing that and thinking about how we can change things. It's not always going to be like this."

Anyone interested in buying tickets can visit: ventbrite.co.uk/e/blood-wedding-tickets-63053448562