YORK Theatre Royal Youth Theatre's 16 to 19 age group is returning to the main-house stage for the first time in four years to present Roald Dahl's frightening fantasy story The Witches from tonight until Saturday.

Youth Theatre director Kate Veysey is directing David Wood's adaptation, working with composer Dominic Sales; assistant director Jenna Drury, co-head of Mud Pie Arts; designer Gem Greaves and lighting designer Alex Stafford-Marshall, who provide the theatrical trickery and special effects; puppet mice designer Beckie May, fresh from creating the York Minster Mystery Plays' animal costumes, and wardrobe supervisor Chloe Bower, in charge of costumes and prosthetics.

In The Witches, an unnamed boy is taken in by his doting grandmother when his parents are killed in a car accident. On a seaside holiday, they stay in a shabbily grand hotel that, unbeknown to them, is hosting the annual meeting of the world’s witches, whose fiendish Grand High Witch plans to rid the world of all children.

"We relish the challenge of telling this story with our 16 to 19 group, many of whom have been developing their performance skills with us since the age of five. For many, this will be their swansong before they go on to further training or drama school," says Kate. "I've also been lucky to have such a great creative team, who are kind of my theatrical dream time, with Jenna to tone down my dark side.

"Being in the main house, it's a bigger scale we can work to and we've been gifted an amazing set from this summer's Sherlock Holmes show, which we've adapted. The cast have had the opportunity to play on there, and most of them have seen the Sherlock show and had a chat with the cast to talk about working on that stage and going to drama school."

Leading Kate's cast will be Maddie Drury as Boy, Rebekah Burland as Grandmother, Dominic Sorrell as Bruno and Molly Levitt as the Grand High Witch, while the international coven of witches will be played by girls and boys in all their bald-headed, be-gloved grotesqueness.

For Molly, 18, the Grand High Witch is her first principal role for the youth theatre in her fourth year after roles in The Tempest and The Circle Of Chalk: a grand farewell before studying at the Royal Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London from later this month after gaining a Level 3 B Tech in Acting at York College.

"I love Roald Dahl; the first books I read were his and I still read them now to my little sister," says Molly, who has a full collection of Dahl's works and set her sights on one role in The Witches.

"I only auditioned for the Grand High Witch. As soon as I found out we were doing The Witches, I wanted to play her as I've never done an evil character. It's really fun as she's so over the top!

"The big challenge has been that she has a strange accent that's a cross between Russian and German."

York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre in The Witches, York Theatre Royal, 7pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7pm, tomorrow and Saturday. Box office: 01903 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk