CATALAN theatre company Companyia Pelmànec will make their British debut at the York International Shakespeare Festival, which opens next Friday.

Virtuosic actor-puppeteer Miquel Gallardo and a jumble of life-sized puppets invite you to “unleash your madness and shake yourself to the core” in the story of a troubled young man, a blowsy mother, a naive young girl, and Max, dressed in the uniform of the asylum, in 7.30pm performances at St Peter’s School on May 11 and 12.

Gallardo will play not only himself, but all four characters in a Spanish-language production with English surtitles and a combination of visual imagery, film, puppetry and emotionally charged acting.

In The Diagnosis: Hamlet, Max wants to be Hamlet and he wants Shakespeare to make decisions for him, speak for him. He wants to be liberated from his pain and his fear through the words of one of the most complex and analysed characters in literature. Forced to live in a lunatic asylum, his father dead and his mother married to his uncle, Max begins to create an imaginary world for himself using puppets and reflecting Hamlet’s universe.

Via therapeutic consultation with his puppets, Max loses himself and is sucked into Hamlet’s tragic fate. Frantically, he tries to control his life with his daily puppet plays, but this is a puppet play with fatal consequences.

The show asks, “Who would like to be Hamlet?” Only a few of us would be prepared to exchange our lives with the character from Shakespeare’s tragedy, suggests Gallardo.

Festival tickets are on sale in the De Grey Rooms, on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, where full festival details can be found.