KITTY Bridges pocket book can fit into not only pockets but also village halls, town halls, hotels, pubs, Georgian town houses, tithe barns, Italian coffee houses, parochial halls and arts centres.

Common Ground Theatre find common ground for theatrical performances in myriad settings, as this season's tour of Kitty Bridges' Pocket Book Of Tunes testifies on its travels around the north that will include Caffe Nero in Davygate, York, for the first time.

It was a tight squeeze at the York company's first show on home soil, as snug as a snug should be at The Gillygate pub in Gillygate, but this is a compact show too: only two musicians, Over The Yardarm folk dance duo Moira Clarke and Paul Baldwin, from Stokesley, and playwright , storyteller and actress Hannah Davies, mistress of a thousand accents, from York.

Moira and Paul had been looking for a collection of tunes to record when Paul came across Kitty Bridges’ Pocket Book Of Tunes at Cecil Sharp House in London. Inside were 21 tunes and accompanying dances and they decided they would be best presented with a narrative.

Step forward Hannah Davies to put the bones on the flesh of a poem in the 1745 pocket book, inventing a story for Kitty Bridges, who starts her fast-paced adventure as a foundling and then encounters sundry scoundrels, rogues and vagabonds in ballrooms and gin-sodden streets and on the road.

This picaresque playful and irreverent world is created with irreverent glee by Hannah, both through her golden turn of phrase and her uncanny knack for mastering all manner of voices, both male and female, high society and highwayman alike.

Her imagery is a delight throughout, not least when describing the lay of the land of London in such physical detail with powers of poetry to rival Pogues' rogue Shane MacGowan's London songs."I am forever Lady London and I will hold you still," she says, and hold us she does in such moments.

Hannah is an engaging hostess, narrator and character actress, changing from one cameo to another at the drop of a hat, whether playing the French dance teacher Monsieur Le Quiff, "a popinjay in thrall to his own magnificence" or the Eastern European (or was it Russian?) Doctor Zupan with his "resurrective powders". She has a vivid imagination too, creating a cat in her tale that is half Siamese, half Abyssinian tiger.

At The Gillygate, Hannah had to spin her yarn within touching distance of the audience, with barely enough room for her travelling case that she was in danger of tripping over on more than one occasion. When she stood on it, her head made contact with the ceiling light, but again she turned it to advantage, revelling in the informality of pub theatre.

Moira, on all manner of recorders and a button accordion, and Paul, on mandolin and cittern, were enthusiastic and lively accompanists throughout, linking each chapter of Kitty's story with a dance tune.

They then brought the night to an energetic, cavorting finale as the floor was cleared and Moira called on her dance caller skills to lead audience members through assorted vigorous dances.

Tom Cornford directs this comic drama of music, freedom, greed and ownership with equal emphasis on the comedy and drama and Jessica Watson's designs of linen, twinkling fairy light s and paper birds will sit well in any setting.

Kitty Bridges' Pocket Book Of Tunes, Common Ground Theatre, on tour until May 16. Box office and tour venues and dates: cgtheatre.co.uk