Award-winning fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett has given his seal of approval to a musical due to be premiered by Ilkley schoolchildren next month.

A short version of The Amazing Maurice And his Educated Rodents - described as a “dark and very funny twist on the Pied Piper” - will be performed by members of the Ilkley Grammar School drama group on October 6.

Based on Terry Pratchett’s book of the same name, Pratchett personally authorised the musical version to be written by Ilkley-based Neil Hanson, and the school’s head of creative arts, Keiron Anderson.

Ilkley Grammar students will perform a shortened version of the musical at the Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe on Thursday October 6.

The tale, set on the magical Discworld (which is flat, and swims through space on the back of four giant elephants, who in turn sit on the shell of a giant turtle), tells the story of Maurice, a cat who leads a group of intelligent rats, from town to town posing as a plague so their accomplice, a teenage piper named Keith, can “lure them all away” from the town, sharing his profits from the money paid by the grateful townsfolk.