ONE of the important recommendations of the Clarke report into the Burnley riots was about bringing people together.

The report said that all sections of the community, and especially the young, should be encouraged to debate their experiences and problems openly.

Plans by Burnley Youth Theatre to put the experience of the riots onto the stage with at least a dozen male Asian and white amateur actors aged between 15 and 25 are a bold step in the right direction.

The idea is that the actors will be recruited from the town's youth and play a big part in writing the production after a residential course which will enable them to get to know each other.

The work will focus on attitudes to racial difference and issues like asylum seekers.

As well as being performed in Burnley the production will tour places with similar community problems like Oldham, Bradford and Manchester. It will be aimed at audiences of the same age as the performers themselves.

As one of the directors says: "The play will also give them the opportunity of saying what it is like to be a young man in Burnley."

If this scheme gets young people from different backgrounds, on the stage and in the audiences, looking and thinking about their own attitudes it will have achieved a lot.

It is the sort of project that richly deserves to succeed.