York Theatre Royal has undergone something of a revolution of late. All aspects of its running have been usurped by people under 26 as part of the Take Over Festival. The gamble has paid of with a season of excellent and interesting plays. The Tartuffe is just one of them.

The action revolves around the life story of egotistical luvvie, Orgon Poquelin (Dominic Allen), and his fall from grace caused by the hippy fraudster holy man Tartuffe (Marcus Emerton). Orgon’s profane narration of his story, full of contemporary satirical reference, is excellent, and the character of the lovable stage manager is particularly brilliant, providing a charming and inept antidote to his incessant bile.

But the real heroes are the faux French troupe of players, complete with dancers, divas and mime artists, who fill the various other roles in the plays within plays. Even before we take our seats they circulate among the crowd, joking, dancing, singing and flirting. Audience members are preyed upon from here on in. A dozen or so are sequestered for a cancan at the beginning and a few others are coerced or threatened into playing larger roles. The fourth wall is well and truly obliterated. This approach climaxes with a hilarious pastiche-riddled mime fight, where the performers fight their way through The Matrix to Star Wars only to be massacred as they go over the top against the mime machine guns of the entire dress circle.

With much of the humour being drawn from disastrous special effects and the fights and tantrums of the cast, I was very much reminded of The Muppet Show. Coming from me, this is the highest of compliments. The only flaw I could find was the plot, but we can blame Molière for that. This version of the tale re-imagined by James Wilkes only uses it as a frame to hold the anarchy together anyway.

Run over. Transferring to the Southwark Playhouse, London, 10-28 November 2009