Review: The Hallows Gate, Nightshade Productions, setting off from Golden Fleece Inn, Pavement, York, every night at 6.45pm until November 2

Every night is fright night – there will be no rest for the wicked on Sunday– in the Nightshade world where a cast of six sets out from the Golden Fleece to bring back to life York's darkest history from the Romans and the Vikings and onwards through 1,900 years of blood-curdling stories.

Nightshade's Hallowe'en special is hosted by two hapless guides, the writer Damian Freddi and his co-director James Witchwood, armed with a time portal device that is more a magnet for trouble and more gore, especially whenever they encounter Ben Rosenfield's time-travelling torture master, Wolfram Maddoc.

What ensues is a promenade performance around the streets, squares and market, where Freddi and Witchwood's spooky storytelling skills and Rosenfield's white-faced relish for terror is complemented by the multiple role-playing of Richard Bevan, Adam Seymour and Fiona Hill (or Naomi Lombard on alternate nights).

The well-known stories of Margaret Clitherow, Guy Fawkes and Clifford's Tower are told afresh, the first two with all the gory details of torture, the third with an apt solemnity for York's blackest black mark. Dick Turpin and his rooster, mutilated Scottish piper James Reid, the randy George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Fausta, Emperor Constantine and a chariot all make an appearance in a fast-moving show that also provides torture demonstrations, rumbustious comedy and a double act in Freddi and Witchwood who can balance the japes with the gravely serious.

The time portal device allows Nightshade to ask Freddi's key question: is history ours to change or a lesson to learn? You can re-write history, but history keeps repeating itself, lessons unlearned. That is the horror of history.

The Hallows Gate, Nightshade Productions, setting off from Golden Fleece Inn, Pavement, York, every night at 6.45pm until November 2. Box office: nightshadeproductions.com