OFF the top of your head, how many Polish playwrights can you name?

Struggling? Well, here is your chance to discover the work of Poland's leading writer, Ingmar Villqist, whose play Helver's Night has been translated by Jacek Laskowski for its British premiere by The Company of Angels in the York Theatre Royal Studio from tonight until November 8.

Helver’s Night is set in an unnamed city in an anonymous European country, and as civil war rages outside, windows are broken and doors banged down. In order for the audience to feel as closed in as the characters, the studio seats are to be brought forward, and a small corridor built around the outside, through which the audience must walk to find their seats.

This innovative design is the work of freelance designer Zoe Squire and director Hal Chambers, whose vision has achieved the Young Angels Theatremakers Award 2014 in a scheme run by Company of Angels, who are co-producing the show with the Theatre Royal.

The award provides a biennial opportunity for emerging artists to develop and direct a new European play.

"Company of Angels had already selected the play – they find the best European plays that have never been heard of over here – and we then pitched our idea for the show to them," says Hal, who brought the puppetry show Tim And Light to the Studio in 2011. "Out of the initial four emerging theatre makers we were chosen to do the premiere.

"We wanted to make a piece of theatre that would be an experience for the audience and not just a case of ‘sit and watch’. The city in Helver’s Night is one we see on the news far too often and we want the audience to come away with more of an understanding of what it’s like to be stuck in your flat, to be intimidated in your own home."

Hal and Zoe did their research and development at the University of York theatre, film and television department in February and then presented 25 minutes from the show at Theatre Cafe showcase of European theatre at the Theatre Royal.

"It was a bit like being on The X Factor, as another company did their version of Helver's Night too, and then the next day it was announced we'd been picked for the premiere...after an X Factor-style pause of course," says Hal. "Here we now are with an amazing opportunity, first at York Theatre Royal , then hopefully London and internationally too."

Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk