Broadband Nativity

Children on a small Orkney island have shared their annual festive concert with a school 544 miles across the North Sea in Norway.

The 26-pupil Shapinsay Community School has been working on the joint Christmas show with a school in Grinder.

They performed alternate scenes which were beamed by broadband across the North Sea to screens at both schools.

The aim was to allow traditional music and theatre from Scotland and Norway to be shared in a community setting.

The viewing of the 90-minute show was in doubt because the Orkney school had a standard broadband line which resulted in a loss of quality in the pictures at the Norwegian end.

BT Scotland stepped in with an early Christmas gift for the Orcadians - funding an upgrade to super-fast broadband for a year, bringing the Shapinsay schoolchildren's show into sharp focus in Scandinavia.

The show's finale featured the Norwegians singing Away In A Manger in English while the Orcadians respond with En Stjerne Skinner I Natt in Norwegian.