Hurican & the Feathered Snake is a puppet show like no other.

With a cast of 402 school children from Torquay it has smashed the world record for the biggest amateur puppet show ever.

The children from Cockington Primary School worked with Totnes based Far & Wide Puppets to dramatise an ancient Mayan myth.

It told the story from the first sound on earth to children playing for the first time on their glorious planet.

A dragon: one of the giant puppets made by the children

From 4-year-olds in reception to the 11-year-olds in year six, every child in the school made their own puppet.

Their creations ranged from the massive to minuscule: shoals of fish to gigantic Mayan gods and from flocks of flamingos to meetings of mud people.

"It was absolutely brilliant," said Lyn Hayward, a teaching assistant at Cockington School.

"We managed to get 402 puppeteers on stage with a total of 463 puppets."

"The co-ordination was quite challenging, getting them all on and off stage.

"But they did everything as they were supposed to and the children are very excited."

Each child made their own puppet

Far & Wide Puppets already held the world record for the biggest puppet show. It was set in 2002 with a cast of 242 children in Dorset.

But the Devon based puppeteers couldn't resist the challenge to go for an even bigger record-breaking show on their home patch.

"We started with nothing," said Tony Gee of Far & Wide Puppets.

"The performance was all the kids' work - so it was quite a theatrical challenge,"

The world record attempt at Torquay's Riviera Centre coincided with the school's art week.

As well as creating the puppet show, the children looked at different aspects of Mexican culture including drama, cooking, sculpture, and painting.