Appearing in his first professional production, 20-year-old Elliott Augustine from Newsome is one of 22 young dancers chosen to appear in Matthew Bourne’s Lord of the Flies at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford.

The former Newsome High School pupil is dancing three roles in the production, which is based on the classic novel by William Golding. “I play one of the boys, called Walter,” says Elliott, “and at the end I am the stranger and the soldier. I’m really enjoying it, it’s a new experience for me.”

A student at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, Elliott is a relative latecomer to dance. It was while studying performing arts at Kirklees College that he became interested in dance and auditioned for the Northern School. He is a former Newsome High School pupil.

Getting a part in Lord of the Flies is a real coup. The Bourne production is currently on tour, enrolling young dancers to play the ‘boys’ in the story from towns and cities in the regions where the show is being performed.

The Bradford show, which opened on Wednesday and closes tomorrow (Saturday, December 6), features young men and boys, aged 10 to 22, from all over Yorkshire.

In the run-up to the show the cast has been rehearsing for seven hours a day - a tough regime but one that Elliott says dancing school has prepared him for. A member of the Huddersfield-based Heavy Arts musical theatre company, Elliott will next be seen on stage in the company’s spring production at the Lawrence Batley Theatre.

Although he has never read Lord of the Flies, Elliott says he has seen movie clips of the story, which was written in 1954 and is an account of what happens when a group of schoolboys, evacuated from a war, find themselves marooned on an island after a plane crash.

Golding’s work highlights the fragile nature of civilisation and what happens when society’s constraints no longer apply and there is a descent into savagery.

The Re:Bourne production, supported by the Arts Council England and Wales, is touring 13 towns and cities, with youngsters from each venue chosen to play ‘the boys’. Matthew Bourne’s aim is to involve young people in the experience of theatre - not all those taking part have dance experience.