COLCHESTER theatre company Real Circumstance has linked up with York Theatre Royal for a third time, coming together for Our Share Of Tomorrow.

After creative partnerships for Limbo in 2007 and the interwoven Irish plays Lough/Rain in 2008, the bond has been strengthened further for the world premiere of a love story written by the company’s artistic director, Dan Sherer.

After rehearsals at the theatre’s Walmgate studios in July, the play began life at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe.

“It went really well; a lovely response,” says Dan, whose company returns to York today in preparation for Friday’s opening of an eight-day run in The Studio.

“The plan is that we’ll go out on tour in the spring, though it’s always difficult to arrange, so the York run is really the culmination of the Edinburgh experience.”

Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden was first drawn to the work of Real Circumstance when the RADA-trained Dan invited him to see the company’s developmental piece, These Green Fields, at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester in 2006.

“It was three in the afternoon on a fine day and we didn’t really know him, but he gave us a day of his time, and afterwards he said: ‘The next time you’re doing a project, get in touch with me first’…and that became Limbo.”

The East Anglian company’s work has been marked by both a desire to “explore intimate human narratives in three-dimensional worlds” and an improvised rehearsal process in which actors “create fully realised imaginary selves that can respond truthfully to any given circumstances”.

This working practice has been developed further for Our Share Of Tomorrow.

“The new play is entirely self-generated by the company and didn’t start from an already completed script, so we knew it would take longer to do, but Damian said: ‘When the basic idea exists, come up here and work on it’,” says Dan.

“If you’ve liked the other plays we’ve done, it’s in the same world, but bigger and fuller and more substantial, and that’s important because you want to push yourself and explore slightly more sophisticated tools.”

Dan admits he had itchy fingers to write a play for his company, and he settled upon the quayside love story of Tom and Grace.

“It’s a poetic, elegiac story; it feels like a eulogy,” he says. “At the same time, it’s set on a quay, so there’s a sense of water, which I always like in the plays I direct, but this one is actually a hopeful piece, as opposed to a story of desperation.

“It’s ultimately about getting off the floor, no matter what you’ve done, even if you’ve done terrible things; otherwise there’s no point… “And unusually for me there are two jokes in it – and one of them is actually quite funny.”

• Real Circumstance presents Our Share Of Tomorrow, The Studio, York, Theatre Royal, from Friday to September 25, 7.45pm plus 2pm, Saturdays, 2.30pm, Thursdays. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk