"My Father's from Bethlehem," says Tanushka Marah, "and when I discovered that as a kid I was just amazed. I thought, 'But he looks nothing like Jesus, and I look nothing like Mary.'"

Never chosen for her school nativity, the artistic director of Company: Collisions is now playing Mary (and Joseph, and the three Kings, and the baby Jesus) in a one-woman play which, as well as neglecting to pander to Christianity's "Ayrian iconography", promises a mesmerisingly beautiful take on the greatest story never told.

"Once Mary has done her bit and given birth to Jesus the Bible seems to give up on her," explains Marah. "In Collisions we love taking famous stories and opening them up theatrically.

So Damian Wright has written this script which tells her story in flashback as she walks to the cross for her son's execution."

Not a Da Vinci Code-style alternative reality but a depiction which "goes against the 'meek and mild' bit," Mary Mother Of A Martyr recognises that to be impregnated via an angel, separated from your maverick son and, finally, to see his life violently ended in front of your eyes, is "quite a traumatic thing".

But, from the comic self-absorption of an awkward young girl who spends her time talking with angels to the bonkers aunt based on one of Marah's own, this play is also full of irreverent humour.

"The interesting thing for me is these three desert religions coming from the same, almost infertile land," says Marah. "My father's theory is that it's because the Arabs are the worst gossipers and exaggerators. So I started to think about my family - all the characters and temperaments. When you put Mary's story in more of a Middle Eastern context there's so much fun you can have with it."

Like all Company: Collisions' work (2003's La Petite Mort, a retelling of The Little Mermaid, was staged on scaffolding with the actors suspended in harnesses) Mary Mother Of A Martyr promises to be visually stunning, with the trademark bare stage and bold, stylish lighting. But at the heart of this piece of physical storytelling is Wright's richly poetic script.

"Damian is just an amazing writer," Marah observes. "It's very rhythmic and evocative but it's not the kind of text which washes over you. His writing is gritty - it doesn't just tell the story, it catches the undercurrents. We want to cast a spell and take people into another world."

Starts at 8pm. Tickets cost £8/£6, call 01273 647100.