New musical version of The Prince and the Pauper on stage with Dynamo Youth Theatre

Bringing together youngsters aged between 11 and 18 and based in Havant, the group caters for about 60 young people from between Chichester and Portsmouth.

John said: “I have been hankering after doing this show for a long, long time, and I had been on the look-out for a set of identical twins. You could do it with look-alikes but three to four years ago I spotted that Dynamo Youth Theatre had just what I was looking for. I had a word with (Chichester novelist and playwright) Greg Mosse (with whom he has worked on a number of projects), and three years ago Greg and I decided to write some songs. I did a course with Pasek and Paul (who wrote the music for The Greatest Showman) over the screen because they're in New York and I came up with a couple of songs and we got to work on the show in earnest. We must have done about 14 songs but then Greg had to drop out because he got a contract to write half a dozen murder mysteries so I carried on by myself. I've written the script, and the twins (Barney and Asti) are now 17 years old.

“There's just something about historical shows that I love and I'd already done a Mark Twain musical in the past. He writes such a good story and you've also got the humour and the differences in society and I just thought that this would be a good vehicle. I didn't expect it to be as hard as it was. If you have a scene with the Prince as the Pauper, then you've got to have a mirror scene at the court showing the Pauper and how he's coping at the other end of things. Certainly in the first half every scene has to have its twin. And they are comparing their fathers. The Pauper’s father is a right vagabond whereas we all know what King Henry VIII was like! And it all takes place in January 1547 which is the month when Henry VIII died, the point at which Prince Edward accedes to the throne.

“The kids are working really, really hard. Because I've taken such a long time to do the script, I had 30 rewrites and they're quite detailed but the kids are coping really well. I've given them some quite tough music to sing. You’ve got the Tudor influence and you’ve got some other styles creeping in as well.

“We are doing it in Havant in January but obviously I'm hoping that there will be other opportunities for the show once it is out there. We've got a cast of between 50 and 60 which is quite a large cast. They are between 11 and 18 but the lovely thing about this company is that they do a lot of self-direction. A lot of the work is done by themselves and they work very closely together in teams. It's been such a great experience.”

The show will be on at The Pallant Centre, Havant from January 8-11.