There's a Scottish bloke half naked in a corner performing stretches that look like they belong in the Kama Sutra, and another is dusting his hands with powder in the manner of someone about to lift a very heavy weight at an Olympic strength event.

Is this the right place?

It is the rehearsal room of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, but it looks more like a circus act warm up area – which, strangely enough, it kind of is at the moment.

To add to the effect a couple of trapeze swings hang from the ceiling. Attached to the stairs that lead down into the massive room is a structure that looks very like a climbing frame and, if I'm not much mistaken, those are bungee ropes tied to
the wall.

Monkey is the Playhouse's big summer show, and the theatre is ensuring it is a memorable one.

Monkey! to give the Playhouse's version its full title, is a new version of an old story. Written by Colin Teevan, it is a stage version of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. Audiences probably best know the story through the television show screened in Britain in the late Seventies. Filmed in China by Japanese actors before being dubbed into English (it confused audiences even back then), the show was a cult hit.

The stage show, TV show and novel tell the story of Monkey, an anarchic and impulsive hero who was born at the beginning of time.

Monkey is locked on a mountain by Buddha for 500 years, a punishment for disobedience. His only means of redemption is to accompany the monk Tripitaka on an epic journey to the Western Heavens, to collect the teachings of Buddha and return them to China.

With the help of his two companions Pigsy and the fish dragon Sandy, Monkey heroically fights off evil attacks by multitudes of demons as the foursome journey through threatening locations such as the Cliffs of Despair in pursuit of their holy destination.

It sounds like the sort of trippy fare at home amidst the televisual treats of the Seventies. Why would it possibly be appropriate material for a contemporary theatre audience?

There is little time to contemplate the question as the Scot in the corner has put some clothes on, unfolded himself out of his origamic position and is ready to rehearse. The actor is Jamie Reid-Quarrel and he is playing the part of Monkey.

The actor slapping powder onto his hands is Matt Costain, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor who is also a specialist trapeze artist. He jumps up on to one of the trapezes swinging from a ceiling and begins
a beautifully written monologue about the beginning of time. What increases the beauty many times over is that the actor performs the speech while spinning through the air on the trapeze.

Director Dominic Leclerc watches the action and wonders aloud at Costain climbing up to the trapeze.

"Will you climbing up there detract from the action happening at the other side of the stage?" asks Leclerc.

The actor on the trapeze suggests: "When I'm up in the air, the audience's focus tends to be on me," he says, catching himself sounding arrogant and adding: "I mean when someone is up in the air, that tends to be where the audience looks."

And therein lies one of the major challenges Leclerc has taken on by directing Monkey!

To give the show an added dimension, all but two of the actors have myriad other skills, from dance to aerial acrobatics.

Leclerc is not just putting together a theatre show, he
is creating a dynamic combination of theatre and highly theatrical circus skills.

"The really good thing is that all of the aerial stuff is embedded in the story. It's not a case of 'oh look, another chance to climb a rope'," says Reid-Quarrel.

Chatting about the play over lunch with fellow cast member Wendy Hesketh, who plays Tripitaka, it is clear that the play is physically demanding. Reid-Quarrel apologises for eating while being interviewed, explaining: "It's just that I need to eat enough and soon enough for it to digest and actually allow me to do all the stuff we're doing in rehearsal."

For her part, Hesketh has been out of rehearsals all morning: "It's my back, I went to see the physio last night, but it's not quite there."

Hesketh is responsible for a large part of the aerial techniques being used in the play. A contemporary dance theatre performer and aerial harness specialist, she is a graduate of London Contemporary Dance, who developed her flying skills with De La Guarda aerial theatre company.

Her bungee-assisted dance work technique was conceived in 2000, followed by the creation of Wired Aerial Dance, co-founded with Jamie Ogilvy.

Since then, the duo have toured extensively in the UK and internationally.

Bungee-assisted dance involves a performer on one end of the rope and
a climber (off-stage) on the other.

It enables the dancer on stage to perform ground-based dance movement that is enhanced by the bungee.

Bradford-born director Leclerc hopes the physical demands will be worth it.

"I trained in dance until I was 16 and then gave that
up to study," he says.

He later became resident director at Sheffield Theatres, where he assisted on shows alongside artistic director Michael Grandage.

"But my background in movement informs the way that I direct enormously.

"The Playhouse asked if I would be interested in the project, and because I am now well known for a very physical and visual style of working, that was what I came to them with.

"Everyone seems excited about the style of theatre we're creating with Monkey!"

Monkey! is at West Yorkshire Playhouse to July 12.

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