When The Argus last spoke to local playwright Richard Crane, he was in the midst of showcasing his critically acclaimed play The Quest to the Arts Council and the Cultural Olympiad in hope of future funding.

Written specifically for young adults and giving a contemporary twist to the exploits of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the production cast students from various schools and colleges across the region alongside professional actors.

“We had just one week to put it all together and could only do act one. We left people at the point in the play where everything is going fine,” laughs Crane.

“The audience went off into an interval, which turned into the longest one in theatre history, lasting about 15 months!”

That The Quest opens in full tomorrow speaks of a successful funding application.

Now the paperwork is behind him, Crane can focus on giving the story the breadth it deserves, ditching his playwright hat in favour of a director’s chair.

“I wrote it a long time ago, so it’s been long enough to appear as if it were written by someone else; I can direct it as a director rather than an author,” he says.

“It starts off like a pantomime and turns into Shakespearian tragedy without you seeing the join. Audiences had only seen the pantomime, as Act One ends with a giant party scene.Then, Sir Galahad arrives and urges them to take on board the full seriousness of the quest for the Holy Grail.

“Half of them stay and half of them go. The former become mired in corruption, the latter go off to find the ultimate pure truth,which means any idea of government goes by the board.”

Crane sees the Arthurian legend as one that recycles itself, regularly finding resonance in modern day issues – its relevance thrown into sharp focus when England needs a cultural boost.

With the recent social upheaval and the Olympics just around the corner, it seems nowis the perfect time for the revival.

“The country seems to be splitting at its seams both economically and socially. A couple of weeks ago, we rehearsed while cities were going up in flames. This is the root of the play – it’s a great idea that destroys itself,” he explains.

“It begins and ends with silence. Arthur comes and draws the sword from the stone. He goes through the process of creating a perfect government that is destroyed from within by people being pulled in different directions, which is a catastrophe for the country.

“Then it goes back to the silent state, out of which it will all start again. It’s a reminder that this legend goes round in circles.”

In direct contrast to its debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 1974, where a group of students from Bradford donned armour and shields, the revival will see the cast dressed in modern clothes.

The lines are still delivered in verse – something linked to the status of Knighthood – but Crane would rather channel the likes of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo And Juliet than the tomfoolery of Monty Python’s take on the myth.

“There’s a retro slant to some of it, so we use swords in the fights. At a costume call we found street clothes which had a superhero quality. If you look at the new Captain America film poster, he’s wearing the kind of thing that Arthur wears – a biker jacket with a shield,” he explains.

This use of “found” objects – dustbin lids for shields, lead piping for weapons and shopping trolleys for horses – extends to the mythical round table itself: a trampoline.

“It has a life of its own and turns actors into athletes. One of the questions I asked at the auditions was, ‘How good is your trampolining?’ They didn’t have to be brilliant, just keen,” says Crane.

“I’m amazed how it fits the modern era so well. It makes me think you don’t ever need to do any show slavishly in tune with the costumes of the time – the audiences are coming from now.

“It’s a powerful legend, meaning it speaks to whatever generation happens to be watching it.”

* 7.30pm and 2.30pm (Weds, Aug 31 and Sat, Sept 3) £12.50/£8.50, call 01323 412000