PUPILS from Dauntsey's School, West Lavington, were given a five-minute standing ovation after they performed their version of Les Miserables in front of a packed theatre in London's West End.

The 1,100-seater Prince of Wales theatre was virtually sold out for Sunday's performance of the hit musical, which is still playing to full houses at the Palace Theatre a quarter of a mile up the road.

It was not possible to put up the set used by Dauntsey's School when it first performed the musical in December at the school because the stage at the Prince of Wales was already taken up by the set of Cliff the Musical.

Instead, the young performers sang from five microphones at the front of the stage, while stills of their school production were projected on screens at the sides of the stage.

The acoustics and state-of-the-art sound system in the theatre made the superb voices of the cast and the 40-strong orchestra under the baton of head of music Chris Thompson sound even better than they had done at West Lavington.

Coachloads of staff, students, parents and friends had travelled from Wiltshire for the event. Three buses left from West Lavington, while others went from Salisbury and Wroughton.

Before the performance began on Sunday, headteacher Stewart Roberts paid tribute to the man who had made it all possible, George Biggs, the managing director of Delfont Mackintosh, the theatrical arm of Cameron Mackintosh Productions.

Mr Biggs is a former pupil of Dauntsey's School. His family ran an optician's in the Brittox, in Devizes, and his grandfather was mayor of the town.

On leaving Dauntsey's he started on the business side of cinema and worked his way up the ladder.

Rikki Jackson, the head of drama at Dauntsey's, approached him about granting the school the rights to perform Les Miserables and Mr Biggs visited the school in 2001 to see its production of West Side Story.

He saw enough to convince him that the standard at the independent school was good enough to entrust them with the difficult production.

But nothing prepared him for what he was to see. He said: "I was absolutely knocked out. To have so many excellent voices in one school is almost unbelievable and the set was so ingenious.

"I had no hesitation in suggesting the school bring this to the West End. I felt it needed a wider audience and it was an accolade which they richly deserve."

The school was given use of the theatre rent-free for the day, but they had to pay for the wages of members of staff backstage crew, usherettes and bar staff as well as for a new licence to perform the score of the show.

Academic bursar Andrew Whitney said the school might make a small profit. He added: "Dauntsey's is now getting a reputation for drama, which doesn't mean to say we intend our students to go into acting.

"But being able to perform on a stage will give them self-confidence and the ability to communicate in whatever profession they decide to enter."

Although the cast were tired from their early start they had to leave Dauntsey's at 6am and an exhausting few weeks, including a production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, they kept the momentum going right to the end of the concert, to be rewarded by the standing ovation.