IF community theatre is all about spreading wings, then the first commission for York Theatre Royal's On Our Turf project could not be better chosen.

Award-winning Bristol theatre company and folk band Fine Chisel have teamed up with the Yorkshire towns of Pocklington, Selby, Easingwold and Helmsley to create Icarus, a story of strapping on wings and taking flight.

"It's a story about what it means to be ambitious and a little bit reckless, and a story about how small towns respond to big dreams," says On Our Turf project co-ordinator Alexander Wright. "It's a story told by people, by communities, about the flights and the falls, the successes and the failures."

Fine Chisel had caught the eye in boisterous performances at the De Grey Rooms Ballroom in York and at Coxwold's Fauconberg Arms and Helmsley's Royal Oak in the first On Our Turf season last September. "When the call came out nationally from the Theatre Royal for the first On Our Turf play, we initially thought, 'What could an arty set of Bristol types do in Yorkshire?," says Fine Chisel artistic director Tom Spencer. "But actually our shows went so well last year, we thought 'Why not?'."

Why not indeed. Fine Chisel are now in control of a "performance event" that brings together community choirs, musicians, craftsmen, performers, makers, doers, groovers and shakers to work with the Bristol actor-musician trio of Tom Spencer, Holly Beasley-Garrigan and George Williams.

"Making this show is a huge adventure – for us, for the organisers, and for the brilliantly talented local people we’re working with to bring it to life, especially when you learn that these four towns are so different," says Tom.

"What brings together a master rocking-horse maker, an African drumming group, schoolchildren and a band of folk musicians? A piece of promenade theatre might not be your first answer, but it works. There's nothing more exciting than hearing a choir sing songs we’ve written and beginning to imagine what the experience will be like for audiences as the piece plays out across each town.”

Fine Chisel conducted rehearsals at Pocklington Arts Centre, the base for the first of four plays to be developed over the next two years, with Selby Town Hall, the Galtres Centre in Easingwold and Helmsley Arts Centre each to be the epicentre for one show.

"We spent eight weeks coming up and down from Bristol to hold workshops and make the show with the people of Pocklington: a group of teenagers from Woldgate School; a group of singers from the Forgotten Voices Community Choir; and Djembe Bash, an African drumming group from Fangfoss," says Tom.

"Then Tony Dew, the rocking horse maker from Fangfoss, turned up at one workshop to offer to make wings. He's now made us these 20ft wings that lead us through each town."

Inspired initially by the story of the Flying Man of Pocklington, Fine Chisel settled on a promenade performance of Icarus, in which a great inventor and his young son Icarus are locked in a tower. Their only chance for escape is to build wings and take to the skies, but Icarus ignores his father’s warning and...you know the rest, but not in the way it is presented in this folk musical/drama.

Each performance starts in a church that doubles as a museum of flight, then the show parades through the town.

" As the trapped father and son's dreams turn to reality, we fall in to the night, flying through the centre of a town before Icarus falls," says Tom. "We then end in a pub at a wake, to raise a glass to those who have fallen but also to those who are still trying to fly."

The night ends with each audience member being invited to decorate a picture of Icarus and to write a wish on it before pegging the card on a washing line of similar pictures and dreams.

Fine Chisel's show has spread its own wings, picking up participants as it travels across the county. Singers, musicians, actors, whatever, are welcome to take part in each show's preparations, which begin in the morning in advance of 7.30pm shows.

Such is the excitement of a constantly evolving project that has played Pocklington, Selby and Easingwold already and concludes with 7.30pm performances in Helmsley on Saturday and Sunday at All Saints Church. Helmsley, now is your chance to take a flight of fancy by joining the company.

For tickets, phone 01904 623568 or book online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk