The pupils will present Our House: The Madness Musical, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre next year.

The show, which features many Madness hits, is about a boy who commits a crime to impress his girlfriend. Teacher Chris Taylor said the school was thrilled.

He added: "The rights were only released for the show in the last couple of weeks so we snapped them up and we believe we will be the first school in the country to perform it.

"This is the third time we have had this honour – we were the first to do Rent last year and We Will Rock You two years before that."

Mr Taylor said the success of previous years shows had encouraged more students to get involved.

He said: "We had a fantastic response from students with more than 130 wanting to take part in auditions.

"We now have a cast of more than 70 and they can't wait to get started.

"It's going to be a very intensive time, but they are extremely excited."

Mr Taylor says the school is now looking for sponsorship for the show which will be performed between Thursday February 11 and Saturday February 13.

* Anyone interested should email him at c.taylor@scalbyschool.org. uk for details before Monday November 2.