THEATRE stretches the mind, but here is a show to stretch the legs too. Like cuckoos, cult theatre auteurs Wilson + Wilson don't lay their eggs in their own nest but pick other residencies, and their latest spot is the beautiful, magical woodland of the Marquis of Normanby's 21,000-actre estate at Sandsend, near Whitby.

"Some tourists passing through Whitby saw the show advertised and got the surprise of their life when they turned up expecting Shakespeare at a beautiful Yorkshire country house," says press officer Alex Gammie. "It's not like that at all."

Each evening, Tuesday to Sunday at 7pm and on Thursday and Sundays at 1pm until July 3, audiences up to a maximum of 40 will be led on a four-mile journey through the woods, mostly on foot, and twice in a convoy of buggies driven by volunteer rangers from the North York Moors National Parks Authority.

Please bring sturdy boots, waterproofs and stamina; mosquito spray and tea and biscuits will be provided in the ruins of Musgrave Old Castle (which was blown up in the English Civil War).

The madly experimental Mulgrave is the culmination of four years of inspiration, planning and preparation by Harrogate-raised designer Louise Ann Wilson and Huddersfield-based director Wils Wilson, specialists in site-specific theatre, installation and art projects since 1997.

Not related to each other and not to be mistaken for the artistic Wilson Sisters of Newcastle, they share a vision of taking theatre off the beaten track, whether into two Huddersfield terraced houses for House or the Watford department store said to have inspired Are You Being Served?.

"Initially for this show we wanted to build some tree houses on the North Yorkshire coast and take the audience up into them, " Wils recalls. Instead, their research led them to Mulgrave Woods. Backing has come not only from the Marquis, the Arts Council England (Yorkshire) and National Parks Authority but also DEFRA's Rural Enterprise Scheme and the local community. A pool of 20 is playing extras and helping out, along with a Sandsend goat with a liking for standing on boxes.

"People are saying this is the most exciting thing that's happened to the village since a storm in 1953 washed away the road," says Alex.

Mystery, magic and mother nature and the music of Hugh Nankivell pervade the "sojourn in the wilderness", conducted briskly over two and a half hours, first in the scurrying, scatty Scottish company of natural historian Mrs Clough (actress Sally Armstrong).

She points excitedly at an exceedingly tall Douglas tree, but eyes are drawn to a suited man (Asif Khan) staggering in a trance through Esk Beck (later we learn he is Hake, the boy who couldn't drown and is destined to go wandering the woods for 1,000 years). A feral child hops about the woodland shadows; a woodman (Martin Pirongs) leaps around, scary as Deliverance; and musical director Sam Dunkley springs from trees.

Onwards, upwards and downwards, we shall encounter Mulgrave myth, history and natural beauty; a horse and carriage; Captain Cook's botanist Sir Joseph Banks (Deka Walmsley) and his protg Omai, the 18th century Polynesian noble savage (Juliet Ellis); Captain Phipps (Pirongs) and his romanticist landscape designer, Humphrey Repton (Walmsley).

From a pathway, we see the Maharaja Duleep Singh (Khan), the last King of the Sikhs, aboard an elephant whose transportation to Mulgrave had necessitated the building of a causeway from Whitby to Sandsend. For Wilson + Wilson, the elephant is of the ornamental variety, borrowed from the Aagrah Restaurant roof in Bradford (and last seen being driven over West End bridge for night storage).

In the finale, Geordie footman Phelps (Walmsley) leads us down a pathway to a troubled young girl (Cerianne Roberts) in her chandelier-lit tree hideaway: the resolution to Wilson + Wilson and writer Amanda Dalton's beguiling, soulful and humorous investigation of the relationship between society and landscape, civilisation and wilderness, art and science.

Unlike Mark Twain's assessment of golf, Mulgrave is not a good walk ruined but a lyrical walk on the wild side of theatre. Are you ready boots? Start walking.

Mulgrave, Wilson + Wilson, Mulgrave Woods, East Row, Sandsend, near Whitby, until July 3. Tickets: £15, concessions £10, under 16s £5; ring 01947 602124.

Updated: 11:33 Saturday, June 18, 2005