A pair of Green Party activists have fulfilled their dream of being the first to translate an Italian play into English.

Ashley Gunstock and Diana Korchien from the Waltham Forest and Redbridge Green Party have spent almost five years translating, directing and producing Dario Niccodemi’s 1916 play, Scampolo.

Mr Gunstock, of Cranbourne Avenue in Wanstead, first decided he wanted to direct an English version of the play in 1996, when an elderly Italian actor suggested it to him.

The 59-year-old said: “I found the script for the play when my wife Louise and I went to Florence on our honeymoon in 1997.

“Unfortunately the man who first suggested it to me died soon after, so it just sat on the shelf for 20 years.

After they met at the Wanstead and Woodford Friends of the Earth group in 2008, Mr Gunstock asked his Green Party colleague Diana Korchien if her Italian teacher would be interested in helping him translate Scampolo.

He said: “I knew that Diana was having Italian lessons at the Hornbeam Café in Walthamstow where we hold our meetings, so I asked her if her teacher could help us out.

“At first I tried doing it myself with Google translate, but that really didn’t work.”

In 2011, Mr Gunstock and Ms Korchien enlisted the help of her Italian teacher, Roman-born Marzia Marani.

Ms Marani, 47, of Pretoria Avenue in Walthamstow, said: “It was a completely new experience for me. I like going to the theatre but I’m not an enthusiast like Ashley is.

“It was sometimes difficult to make sure the English version carried the same meaning as the original.

“The hardest thing was we couldn’t just ask the writer what he meant if we got stuck on something – it’s a real challenge translating something written by someone who died in 1934!”

The trio have been meeting up on a regular basis since Mr Gunstock’s theatre company Poetic Justice first took on the project in 2011.

Ms Korchien, 64, of Forest Drive East in Leytonstone said: "It reads very naturally, you can't tell it's been translated really.

"I think we've done something really groundbreaking with it."

Mr Gunstock added: “The three of us working together has been magical.

“Marzia knows the language and the culture, Diana is a linguist so knows about the nuances of translation and I come at it from a theatrical perspective.

“Now we’re nearly finished, it’s a very special moment for me.

“Our translation journey has been a long labour of love – but happily punctuated along the way with liberal rewards of prosecco, pecorino and pasta!”

Poetic Justice's Scampolo, which tells the story of an impoverished engineer in Rome whose life is turned upside down by a teenage vagrant, is the first English language production of the 1916 play.

It will be on at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington from April 19 to May 1.

For bookings, please see the website or ring 020 7704 6665.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scampolo-an-italian-drama-in-3-acts-tickets-2115742743