IT began with a disturbance, as was all the rage on Black Friday.

A group of protestors in black hoodies and scarves wrapped tight to hide identities handed out flyers to explain why their organisation had taken to the streets to “protest against the corruption, greed and oppression that is riddled amongst our capitalist system”.

Welcome to Mr Puntila And His Man Matti, an epic 1940 comedy about workers’ rights, blinkered power and greed by German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht, translated with vigour and frank lingo by another socialist theatre exponent, Lee Hall.

Natalie Quatermass’s cast of 16 to 19 year olds then played characters from 1940, led by country land-owner Mr Puntila, whose love of a drink had him seeing and speaking double – and the audience seeing quadruple.

There were no fewer than four Puntilas in tweed jackets played by Hannah Brown, Ben Franks, Roman Abu Rish and Emily Mundon with uniform arrogance and bluster to satirise the indistinguishable parties of today.

None recognised chauffeur Matti (the sparky Chris Vernon-Rees), a protestor with the brio to woo and wow Puntila’s daughter, when daddy wants to marry her off to the appalling Attache (a slovenly Jack Fry). Theatre of alienation it may be, but it was engrossing, politcally savvy and punchily humorous.

York playwright Henry Raby’s coruscating new post-war take on Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Circle Of Chalk, addressed the theme of displacement, home and nationhood with passion, anger, a bleak prospect and jagged shards of wit, while Ross Allen’s Azdak and George Orpe’s Governor excelled in Julian Ollive’s company.