Small group with big ideas about all things Yorkshire

Icabod is one of a number of small theatre companies working in Yorkshire. Nick Ahad looks at their latest project.

As any Yorkshireman or woman knows, there's something about the Broad Acres that inspires a celebration of all things Yorkshire.

In 2003, Yeadon-based Lisa Druett set up Icabod productions to do just that.

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"We wanted to set up a company that celebrated local stories, local talent, local writers. Essentially, we wanted to make a company that was in praise of all things Yorkshire," says Druett.

The company's opening show couldn't really have been much more celebratory.

Four Knights in Knaresborough, a brilliantly comic tale written in 1998, but set in 1711, is based on the true story of the four knights who assassinated Thomas Beckett and then fled to Knaresborough

where they hid out in the castle for a year. "When we looked into it, we discovered that the play had never been done in Knaresborough and it just made sense to us that it should be staged there," says Druett.

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Supported by a small Arts Council Yorkshire grant, the production was staged in Knaresborough and was such a success that a countywide tour was soon launched.

Icabod had a place on the map. It was, admittedly, a very small place on a very big map, but companies like Icabod, Druett says, are vital to the ecology of theatre. Without small touring companies like hers, the large shows at larger theatres are propped up by nothing. These smaller companies feed directly into those larger buildings.

The success of Four Knights encouraged Druett and she secured another small amount of funding to stage a second piece. Appropriately for the company, she decided to stage A Yorkshire Tragedy, "it's always about celebrating what we've got here in the county," she says.

Like the production before it, this show received a small amount of Arts Council funding and went out on the road. The company had earned itself a reputation for well thought out, rarely seen work, which it was bringing to Yorkshire audiences. Its latest play is a complete change of pace.

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While Four Knights in Knaresborough and A Yorkshire Tragedy are definitely period pieces, Icabod's latest play, Funny Men, is set in modern day at the Edinburgh Festival.

While at first glance it looks like the company has abandoned its roots, it appears that it is actually sticking to them.

"I came across the play at the end of 2008, when it was presented at the Snowgoose New Writing festival in Bradford," says Druett.

"It seemed a little different to the work we've done previously, but it's by a Yorkshire writer and that fits in just fine with our ethos," says Druett. Bradford-based Andrew Crowther's script sees two stand-up comics double booked and thrown together as a double act.

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The play will premiere next week, before heading to the Edinburgh Festival in August this year. "We're still very dedicated to Yorkshire and telling Yorkshire stories and although this might look a little different, it's still a play celebrating local talent."

Funny Men, Otley Courthouse, March 6, Leeds Carriageworks, March 12 and 13. 0113 224 3801.