TALENTED art students at a school in St Albans are lending their artistic vision to an amateur production and raising cash for the Poppy Appeal

The sixth-form art students were approached by the director of Harpenden’s High Street Players’ forthcoming production, Margaret Cox, to produce pictures of poppies for their murder mystery, Strictly Murder.

Lucy Browne-O’Sullivan, Jasmine de Souza and Kiera O’Sullivan were then set the task of producing the pictures as part of a project by their teacher and the finished images will now be used as a key part of the production which is about an artist who paints pictures of poppies.

The purpose of the pictures will not end there and audience members will be given the chance to bid for the paintings in an auction at the end of the show’s run on November 26. Money raised by the auction will go directly to the Poppy Appeal and Help for Heroes.

Strictly Murder was written by Brian Clemens, who is most famous for his work on The Avengers and The Professionals. It is set in Provence in 1939, just before the start of World War II. Peter and Suzy are an English couple living in idyllic isolation; he is an artist who paints poppies and it is these paintings that shatter their peace when Suzy discovers Peter is not the man he claimed to be.

Strictly Murder will run from November 24-26 at the High Street Methodist Church in Harpenden. Tickets cost �8 and are available at the church office or on 01582 763277.