Two young actors from Oxfordshire took centre stage at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday.

Martha Schofield, 17, from Oxford, and Fred Kirby, 16, from Witney, took part in a performance of the Gaza Monologues, a play highlighting the plight of young Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

The pair are members of the Pegasus Theatre, in Magdalen Road, East Oxford, which last month joined 40 other theatres around the world in a special simultaneous performance of the work. The performance in New York coincided with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Yasmin Sidhwa, head of creative learning at Pegasus, flew to New York on Friday for the event.

She said: “Fred and Martha were very excited about meeting all the other young people from all over the world, and there were also some nerves about going on their own. ”

The play was created by teenagers in Gaza to describe their experiences of their homeland, an enclave on the east shore of the Mediterranean, hemmed in by Israel and Egypt.

Ms Sidhwa said: “What is brilliant is that other countries will see what we’ve done.

“Gaza’s Ashtar Theatre have already seen what we have done, as we have sent them an online scrapbook and a film, and they love it.”