WRITER Alice Birch and theatre company RashDash take on porn in We Want You To Watch at the Courtyard Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, from tonight until Thursday.

Commissioned by the National Theatre, the high-energy and anarchic performance is set in a world where extreme pornography is increasingly easy to access. Exploring what this could mean for all of us, RashDash ask difficult questions, dance, and dare audiences to imagine a world without pornography.

The intention is to not only generate discussions that continue into the bar long after the show has ended, but also to encourage audience members to carry on the conversation online via a specially commissioned chatroom: we-want-you-to-watch.co.uk RashDash, an associate company of West Yorkshire Playhouse, is run by artistic directors Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland and producer Charlotte Bennett, who has worked for York Theatre Royal, York's TakeOver Festival and Sprite Productions at Ripley Castle.

“The show has divided audiences, not only because of its radical content, but also because of its radical form," say Helen and Abbi. "We hope it’s an exciting opportunity for audiences to come and engage with an important and urgent debate, because whether you engage with it or not, pornography is shaping the world we all live in. The show is different from a lot of theatrical experiences: the argument takes centre stage with no attempt to disguise or decorate it, but it’s fun and funny, complex and beautiful.”

York Press:

RashDash in a scene from We Want You To Watch. Picture: Richard Davenport

RashDash specialise in devising plays but on this occasion the West Yorkshire Playhouse gave them funding to develop work with a writer for the first time. "We started experimenting with Alice a good couple of years ago; we met and it just seemed to gel," says Charlotte Bennett. "RashDash could start working on something in the morning or Alice would do a bit of text, and we ended up doing two work-in-progress performances in London."

The National Theatre came on board at this juncture, leading to the commission of the play in its present form for a five-week run in London in June and July and now a six-week tour, led by tour director Laurence Cook, who graduated from the University of York in 2012 incidentally.

After its experimental early days, the play settled on its format of two women taking on the world of pornography through a series of actions, such as having the far-fetched idea of kidnapping The Queen and demanding that she must ban pornography. "The show is quite random, grasping at things, because porn is such a big issue and a multi-million industry, so we're asking people to think about their individual relationship with it. We're not arguing that all porn is bad, but the way it's progressing, it's becoming more violent and degrading to women, and you think, 'when are we going to stop this development?'."

Rash Dash present We Want You To Watch, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, tonight until Thursday, 7.45pm; contains strong language and adult themes; suitable for ages 16 plus. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at wyp.org.uk