SHOWSTOPPER!, The Improvised Musical is the 2016 Olivier Award-winning show where a brand new musical comedy is created from scratch at each performance as audience suggestions are transformed on the spot.

Two such shows will be made in York tomorrow in the company's first visit to the city to play the Great Yorkshire Fringe in the White Rose spiegeltent at 4.30pm and 6.30pm.

Among the founder members is Adam Meggido, who recalls the company's beginnings. "This is our eighth year after starting out in a portable building at the Edinburgh Fringe, capturing people's imagination straightaway and just growing from there," he says.

"When we started there wasn't an improv scene and it was the first in a line of shows where it had a concept that made people say, 'you're going to do what?', but everything we do really is improvised: the music, the story, the songs, the lyrics. Nothing you will see on stage has not been improvised, and that's the thing that tickles people's imaginations, where they think, 'how's that going to work'.

"Of course the game here is that you're going to see a slick, precise show that looks like it's spent three months in the rehearsal room, when in fact we're doing it on the fly, so that's the audacity to it that people like."

Adam suggests there is an enjoyable naivety to each show too. "As much as it's quick and clever, it's also warm, has love songs and even has bits that you care about, so rather than having a sense of arrogance about it, it's performed with genuine heart, which gives it that naivety," he says.

Showstopper! is built around a core company with Adam and Dylan Emery at the epicentre, having been the co-creators of the company. "I come from a more traditional background in theatre and musicals; Dylan comes from an improv background, but we both worked with the late Ken Campbell, who used to say as one of his routines, 'Do it as a musical', and I said to Dylan, 'I think we can turn this into a full-scale musical'," says Adam.

He and Dylan have trained up a group that can sing in different styles, with a really good knowledge of musicals. "They all have to be prepared to be a team player and very much show that ensemble philosophy, with the audience as the driver of the show," he says.

"We all have to have the necessary skills, so that while improv is normally rough-and-ready comedy, our style is different to that; we like our shows to be polished, and we also like our audiences to dare to dream, to really surprise us with their suggestions.

"We encourage them to come up with something extraordinary as we want to do beautiful amazing work; we aspire to do something that's better than if it was scripted or choreographed, though of course we don't always succeed. It's a musical high-wire act where there can be a lot of wobbling on the wire."

Showstopper!, The Improvised Musical, Great Yorkshire Fringe, White Rose Rotunda, Parliament Street, York, Saturday, July 23, 4.30pm and 6.30pm. Box office: 01904 500600 or at greatyorkshirefringe.com