NOT since the English Shakespeare Company’s Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington took over York Festival for a weekend to present the full War Of The Roses cycle in 1988 has so much history unfolded on a York stage.

Shakespeare’s Globe are premiering Nick Bagnall’s triple bill of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays under their original titles of Harry The Sixth, The Houses Of York And Lancaster and The True Tragedy Of The Duke Of York – the one where the aforesaid Duke ends up with his head stuck on the city gates for “York to look upon York”.

It was not until the cast arrived in York for tech and dress rehearsals last Monday that they felt the full weight of history, and it unquestionably adds to the impact of this marvellous production, performed in the style of the original Globe players but with a knowing modernity too.

Bagnall talked ambitiously of cutting each play to two hours – putting the six into Henry VI – and arrives tomorrow to administer cuts, although he does not need to follow the draconian code of Chancellor George Osborne. Only the first half of Henry VI: Part Two would benefit from such incisions, the slashing better consigned to the multiple mortal blows in combat.

Each play can stand alone, but while it may be financially prudent to see only the third, that would mean missing the outstanding individual performances in the first two and appreciating the fullness of Graham Butler’s bookish, nervous-fingered Henry VI, “the right king at the wrong time” at the core of the plays’ journey from his childhood to bloody murder at the hands of Richard the Crookback (Simon Harrison).

Throughout, the cast creates its own thunderous soundtrack on drums and occasional, urgent trumpet, and even the bashing of Ti Green’s set design of two scaffolding edifices with ladders and a central tower cum throne with gilded steps.

Butler’s innocent Henry first emerges from behind a curtain, sat reading as he will continue to do to his dying day. That throne will go from red to ornately decorative to being stripped away to match history’s desperate, visceral march.

Harry The Sixth has impressive turns from Garry Cooper’s honourable Gloucester (the first of his 12 roles in a production where the cast of 14 must play 153 between them) and in particular Beatriz Romilly as a Yorkshire-accented Joan of Arc.

Joan’s aside about French failings is but one of a series of digs aimed gleefully in that direction. Later, Brendan O’Hea’s camp ’Allo ’Allo! send-up of Lewis XI, King Of France, brings the house down.

Romilly is better still as the Ophelia-like Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester; Roger Evans’s rebel, Jack Cade, channels Vinnie Jones; and Mary Doherty’s Queen Margaret and Ohea’s Duke of York are compelling too.

Red and white roses plucked from the St George’s Cross on Henry V’s coffin; faces roughly smeared in white or red; so many sword fights; and the haunting songs of Alex Baranowski are further memorable features, and you will be surprised by how much humour is to be mined from these brutal, politicking plays: bloody funny, you could say or rapier witted, if you prefer.

A brilliant first visit to York by the Globe is topped off by the Theatre Royal’s new temporary raked stalls seating, which vastly improve the sightlines and will become a permanent feature in the years to come.

Henry VI: Three Plays, Shakespeare’s Globe On Tour, York Theatre Royal, until July 13, plus Towton Battlefield, July 14. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk