Prostitutes are a common sight on the roads of Catalonia, in Spain, and a controversial topic in the country.

In this site-specific theatre piece by the Reial Companyia de Teatre de Catalunya, an audience is picked up by a bus and taken to a secret roadside location to get a glimpse into the lives of the women selling their bodies to live.

“We had a lot of curiosity to know more about these women,” say Jordi Centellas and Laia Alsina, the artistic directors of the company. “We wanted to discover the women behind the professionals. Our attempt was to bring to the stage the most human side of a prostitute and, at the same time, the side that can resemble our own lives more.”

The show, which is the third devised piece by the company, premiered last September at the street theatre festival Fira Tarrega and sold out two weeks before its first performance.

“Kurva presents a controversial reality in which different many characters – prostitutes, politicians and police – are in constant conflict,” say Centellas and Alsina by email.

“It takes its inspiration from a sensitive local and global social issue – street prostitution – to approach universal themes, including fate, love, loneliness, friendship, identity, tenderness, fear and hate.”

The play is advertised as being performed in Catalan, but this should not be a barrier to an English audience.

“Everybody can understand the show,” they say. “The language is not important. The characters’ actions build the plot. There is some dialogue in Spanish, Polish and Russian.”

  • 5.30pm and 7.30pm, 1.30pm, Sat and Sun, £15, call 01273 709709