IT began with an envelope, a letter and a tape. The tape had been sent by a previously unknown organisation, calling itself TomatoSoopSky. Press 'start'. First, portentous music, then the hand-held camera pans across a stretch of mown York grass with an historical building beyond.

Suddenly a man falls out of a tree. Young. Dazed. Ruddy of hair, impish of face, with student stubble. "History" he says confidently, pointing in the direction most probably of the Minster. "History," he repeats. "Um".

Up roll the credits in white and ghoulish red: Arts Council England presents... a TomatoSoopSky production... The Hystorical Walk Of York.

"History is like a peanut: you have to crack the shell to get out the good stuff," the guide decides, striking a philosophical pose from one of those history shows on TV presented by David Starkey, Michael Wood or Simon Schama.

Glancing at the video case, the glum chap from the front sleeve - seated on ancient steps by a drainpipe with a cardboard sign that reads "Not Simon Schama" - is the same as the animated fellow now seen on screen extracting himself and his shoes from the fountain outside York Art Gallery.

"We're offering you brand new history" he says. Then a gaggle of tourists catches his eye. "Another bloody ghost walk". He goes on to call for a bow to shoot a squirrel and a shovel to damage a shed at the feet of the city walls; admits he is "just waiting for the Yanks"; and muses once more on history. "History doesn't even have to be correct. It can be ****ocks, and that's what our show is," he says, before offering assurances that the walk is anything but that. "What shall I have for my tea," he asks himself, as sound and vision fade away.

Cheeky, irreverent, brash, this punk-spirited Puck demanded further investigation, investigation welcomed in the accompanying letter sent by one Lynne Stanford, from an address in White Cross Gardens, Huntington Road, York.

"I am writing to let you know of a new walk that is running in the month of July. We combine both theatre and performance with the more traditional ghost walk to bring a new, innovative and very funny walk that concentrates on brand new history," she wrote.

A meeting was arranged at City Screen - where Lynne works - for TomatoSoopSky to outline its plans to shake up the merry-go-round of guided walks in the city. Lynne introduced Howard Mosley, the acerbic wit from the video. Lynne, 20, is the producer; Howard, 21, the writer and tour guide; and the absent, Helen Lewis, 22, the director.

All three have newly graduated from the theatre, film and television degree course at York St John's College and have been working on this project since February, attaining £220 in funding from the Arts Council of England for costume, props and publicity. "We started this walk through a module we did on the course on Independent Companies," says Lynne. "You had to form your own company; most do theatre and education work but we decided to do something that could form an entertainment piece in York."

Howard chips in: "I've mainly done stand-up at university, and while we thought about a site specific project, we thought it would be better to do a show in promenade. So we're a theatre show but the only thing we don't have is a stage...

"Instead," rejoins Lynne, "We have the natural backdrop of York."

"And it's so very good to take the mick out of," says Howard, who brings his outsider's perspective on York from far-off Doncaster.

He has subjected himself to the ghost-walk experience. "We did go on a few ghost walks, and they were all the same. Very boring.

"Ghost walks have a reputation for being family entertainment, and we hope to build something a bit more risky - an enjoyable piece of theatre that someone coming to the York Comedy Festival could enjoy."

Rather than "one old man with a hat and a beard", the Hystorical Walk has four over-the-top, story-telling characters, part Monty Python, part League Of Gentlemen, part York history, part mischief makers.

On preview night, Nick Minns's Australian back-packing Emperor Constantine was absent, but Richard Massara's pipe-smoking Viking English Colonel played his part, as did Rob MacDonald's French, pontificating Guy Fawkes with a pink feather boa around his dandy hat.

The fulcrum, however, is Howard Mosley, in his Roman headgear, flowing white coat-cum-waistcoat and all as he leads his cluster from the gathering point outside the main entrance of York Minster. "Everything you read in the history books is wrong," he says. "York was only built as a handy place to throw rocks at the Scots."

From gay Roman nightspots to Normans constructing the first York Minster from wood, Mosley's humour is spiky, cynical yet playful, sometimes venturing into Viz territory, other times Joe Orton, and unquestionably too crude for some. Tellingly, he has done some re-writing since the initial shows.

In essence, however, The Hystorical Tour - history with a hysterical twist - tackles York's history in the correct chronological order. Then it comes up with all manner of irreverent, daft theories on why certain events happened as the hour's tour travels from Constantine's statue to St William's College, Minster School, High Petergate, the Guy Fawkes pub and, finally, the war memorial.

"We want it to be a walk that people don't have to take too seriously. Americans have their image of British history from Braveheart and the Robin Hood movies, so we're smashing that up," reasons Howard.

Audiences were in single figures in the first week, rising to ten at the weekend, and it has to be said the walk was not very historical (fair enough), not very hysterical (more problematic) but full of vigour and inventive spirit.

The Hystorical Walk may well vanish from York as quickly as the characters who rush off in separate directions after a mock fight at the finale, yet a spoof walk amid all the ghouls and ghosts would surely be welcome on a regular basis.

"We're running the walk through July, and it's a possibility that we'll be expanding it to other cities such as Bath and Edinburgh," says Lynne. "It's something where we could patent it and then take it elsewhere."

Work on the material, and this anarchic history tour may have a future in York and beyond.

TomatoSoopSky's The Hystorical Walk Of York runs until July 27. Tours start outside York Minster's main entrance at 7pm, Thursday to Sunday, plus 5pm on Saturdays. Tickets cost £3, adults, £2.50, children, on the day.

Updated: 11:57 Friday, July 11, 2003