THE story of Dick Turpin has been told many times: by the newspapers and court reports of the time and in glamorising melodramas in print; in a lavish pop video by dandy Adam Ant; and on stage in Murray Watts and Bridget Foreman’s play for Riding Lights in York in 2001 and even by Dame Berwick Kaler in Dick Turpin, The Pantomime, at York Theatre Royal in 2008.

Now Leeds playwright Gemma Head relates “the mostly true story of Dick Turpin and the Woman in Brough”, focusing for the first time on the mysterious, bewitching East Riding pub landlady, to whom the highwayman left his last effects before throwing himself from the Knavesmire gallows in York.

On the day of his execution, he bequeathed her his gold wedding band, his clogs and a pair of shoes, hence the play’s title that serves as a launching pad for Head’s imagination to run riot as she speculates on the character of a woman “whom history never even cared to name”.

Head takes up the story in 1737 as Turpin (Andy Curry, ever the Mooted leading man) flees to Yorkshire, leaving behind a dark secret and a wife down south, as he adopts a new name and a new life, posing as horse trader John Palmer.

Taking up lodgings at The Ferry Inn, he meets his match in Martha (Victoria Morris), equally strong of will and up for bedroom frolics, hardly hidden from benign landlord husband William (Bill Laughey).

She may or may not be a witch; Gemma Head’s jealous, viper-tongued Eliza is on her case, just as David Zezulka’s Robert is breathing down the neck of fellow southerner Palmer/Turpin, knowing the truth behind his escape north.

Set in and outside Hannah Sibai’s open-topped pub design, where the bar top is regularly opened to reveal a much-used bed, Turpin and Martha’s tale is told more in the style of a psychological thriller than a melodramatic romp. Under Mark France’s direction, the drama is crisp and the humour is ruddy, not least from Nigel Smith’s convivial Richard.

As seen in last week’s premiere performances at the Leeds Carriageworks, a layer of mystery is always present, and the sense of time running out is ever hastening, Jonny Arden’s piano and string compositions always complementing the mood of a scene.

Curry is always eye-catching, with a flame-red hint of danger, while Morris’s Martha is wild, untamed and explicit beneath the surface of constraint she struggles to maintain.

After a series of productions of well-known works, Mooted have entered into the unpredictable world of a new play. More should follow, because these Dead Man’s Shoes fit them well.

* The Mooted Theatre Co in Dead Man’s Shoes, Friargate Theatre, York, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and Frazer Theatre, Knaresborough, May 20, at 7.45pm. Box office: York, 01904 613000; Knaresborough, mootedtheatre.com/tickets