THE Flanagan Collective are to return to their home city of York with three shows this autumn, beginning on Saturday and Sunday with the musical Some Small Love Story at The Gillygate in Gillygate.

These 7.30pm performances will be followed in the same location by Fable on October 5 and 6, again at 7.30pm. A third Alexander Wright play, the premiere of his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s horror story Frankenstein, will be staged on the streets of York from November 3 to 26, setting off from York Theatre Royal at 8pm each night.

The Flanagan Collective have spent the past year working across three continents and several locations in Britain and their last show in York was Wright's all-female version of Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet in St Olave’s Church as part of the York International Shakespeare festival in May 2015.

Some Small Love Story was written and rehearsed in York in the summer of 2011 as the first show the company wrote and produced for the Edinburgh Fringe.

"The musical tells the story of two couples affected by joy and tragedy through intimate storytelling in a stripped-back and unique production, as we return with a re-staging of the cult hit musical this September featuring the original cast and creative team to celebrate five years of theatre making in our home city of York," says Alexander.

The original Some Small Love Story cast of Veronica Hare, Serena Manteghi, Ollie Tilney and Michael Slater will be joined by musical director Gavin Ainsworth, who wrote the show's music. "We rehearsed it in our flat in St Mary's and since then all our lives have taken such significant shifts, so it's great that we can all get back together for this weekend's performances," says Alexander.

"It's lovely to return to it all these years later and still work on it in a front room, and it's still a musical with four people in a row and everyone still cries. There's some stuff you write that you would change later but not this one, other than the two songs we added in 2012."

Wright's four-hander is built around the death of two loved ones, as a young couple's relationship is torn apart by a car accident and an elderly couple's years of companionship fade away overnight.

"As the audience watch four people in a line, they have to do all the imagining in this play," says Alexander. "It all has to go on in in their head, which is why they will find it sad because they will be imagining their own houses, their own grandparents, their own lives, putting their own narrative, time and place into it."

Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk