IT began in an empty York pub in Gillygate, turned into pop-up arts space The Fleeting Arms in December 2015, then switched to 41 Monkgate, home of the John Cooper Studio theatre, 12 months later, and has since gained the momentum of a cult theatre phenomenon.

To date, Alexander Flanagan Wright's interactive adaptation of The Great Gatsby for the Guild Of Misrule has danced its way into eight locations across Britain and Ireland, playing to 50,000 people, as well as becoming London's "longest-running immersive theatre" show.

Now, The Great Gatsby is "coming home", as Wright's peripatetic play, with choreography by Holly Beasley-Garrigan and sound design by Phil Grainger, returns to North Yorkshire for only five performances of F Scott Fitzgerald's jazz-age novel in the most elegant of settings, Castle Howard, from Wednesday to Sunday night.

York Press:

The Guild Of Misrule's writer and director, Alexander Flanagan Wright, at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham 

The setting is the Roaring Twenties, an American era of bootleg liquor, red hot jazz and hedonistic pleasures, where Jay Gatsby has invited you to one of his infamous Long Island mansion parties and that is not an invite you want to turn down.

Wright's version puts you in the heart and heat of the action, when you "slip on your dancing shoes and watch the story unfold around you, as the cocktails flow and the music plays, from Charleston zing to Otis Redding heartache, and there is the chance of more than a little scandal".

What's more, you may dress in your best 1920s' attireand join in with the performance, whether dancing like a flapper to a jazz number or engaging in impromptu conversation with dapper, mysterious host Gatsby, enigmatic muse Daisy Buchanan, fiery Tom Buchanan, or constantly questing narrator Nick Garraway, as you choose your path through the story, following characters into various rooms for assignations, contretemps and confessions.

York Press:

Oliver Towse's Jay Gatsby and Amie Burns Walker's Daisy Buchanan at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham 

"Castle Howard is an amazing setting," said writer-director Alexander this morning, en route to three days of rehearsals for his cast to acclimatise to the John Vanbrugh country house. "In other iterations, we've chosen to play to the darker end of Gatsby's world, such as the drug store, but now, to have the absolute grandeur of Castle Howard for Gatsby's glamorous, opulent, high-society world is fantastic."

Performing in such surroundings will be Oliver Towse's Gatsby; Amie Burns Walker and Phil Grainger, from the original company, as Daisy and George Wilson respectively; Cornelius Geaney Jnr (who should surely be a Fitzgerald character with such a name) as Buchanan; Mark Donald as Garraway; Zoe Hakin as Jordan Baker and Casey Jay Andrews as Myrtle Wilson.

They will be leading this week's audiences into parts of Castle Howard not open to the public on the usual visitor route: two private bedrooms, the Admiral's bedroom and Lady Cawdor's bedroom; the Grecian Hall and the South East Wing, otherwise known as the "burnt-out wing".

York Press:

Mirror image: Amie Burns Walker's Daisy Buchanan, with Oliver Towse's Jay Gatsby, at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham

"We had a 'little explore', when we were shown lots of places, lots of options, and the choices we made had to be half wish list, half practical, as we had to consider how each room's location would work out for timings," says Alexander. "We said we'd make sure we were careful in how we used them, and they approved.

"So, the burnt-out wing, for example, is eerie and sparse by comparison with how ornately wrought the rest of the house is, and that's ideal for George and Myrtle's sad domestic scenes that maybe ten audience members will see unfolding in one room at each performance."

The cast for Castle Howard arrived this morning after giving three private performance at Belgium's oldest hotel, in Kortrijc, owned by the maker of Copperhead Gin, the pharmaceutical gin sponsor of the London performances of The Great Gatsby. "It's a beautiful building, so it was really exciting to do it there, in a 'real place' that we didn't have to design; like at Castle Howard, where we get to play with these wonderful rooms," says Alexander.

As for Wednesday's 7pm clash with England's World Cup semi final, "we'll be carrying on," he says. After all, who can resist a Jay Gatsby invitation?

The Guild Of Misrule presents The Great Gatsby at Castle Howard, near York, Wednesday until Sunday; doors at 7pm; show, 7.30pm. Box office: castlehoward.co.uk