CHILDREN were given a week of silent theatre workshops as part of a French company’s Christmas production.

French theatre group Compagnie Animotion worked with children at Wix and Wrabness Primary School to develop its show next year.

Artistic director Hayli Clifton said: “We are doing research and development for a new production in 2018.

“We need to work with the target audience who we want to make the show for.

“As an adult you know what you think is magical in a piece, but we don’t know a six or nine year old finds magical.

“We ran a series of workshops with the pupils.

“We did green screen work, making sound effects with everyday objects and video work.

“We also did problem solving as the show will be fairly participative.”

The Christmas show, Who Stole Santa’s Suit, will tour the UK and France next year, including Colchester Arts Centre.

Hayli added: “We had a great time at Wix and Wrabness Primary, it’s such an amazing school and a very creative place to be.”

Senior teacher Vanessa Lindsay said the Anglo-French partnership was part of the schools Curious Education Model, which aims to encourage and teach different cultural experiences.

“To build on our success we’ve launched this year with an Anglo/French partnership in which our children collaborated with the Compagnie Animotion to experience the process of theatre production.”