Teenagers are performing a modern-day ‘take’ of Rostand’s classic Cyrano de Bergerac as part of this year’s Bangla Drama festival returning to London’s East End.

The play Rapture, first seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival earlier this year, is being staged tomorrow at Whitechapel’s Brady Centre, written and acted by youngsters aged 13 to 19.

It explores themes of truth and deception, values and virtues, and the real meaning of friendship.

The heroine writes amazing rap lyrics, but doesn’t get the credit because her best friend performs them on the Hip Hop scene. Her talents go largely unnoticed and she longs “to belong”—yet understands conflicting influences that different cultures and faiths have on teenage identity.

The play focuses on women in Hip-Hop and women in Islam, as well as wider issues of marginalisation and radicalisation in east London.

Its Saturday night performance at the Brady Arts & Community Centre in Hanbury Street starts at 7.30pm.

The Bangla Drama season, now in its 14th year, runs until November 27 at several East End venues with a wide-ranging fringe programme of diversity, staged by Tower Hamlets council and supported by Canary Wharf Group and the Arts Council.

It brings together British and Bangladeshi writers, actors, directors and producers who have gone through a rigorous selection process to make the grade.