No headpine

"There are other ways of doing that, through food and through music," she says. "It may not be as erotic, but Casanova used the gift of the gab to talk women into bed."

Paul Hunter, who directs the production and co-founded Told By An Idiot with Carmichael, says their instinct was to avoid like the plague what might be expected of Casanova.

He points to one scene in which Casanova meets the writer Voltaire. "He gets all his great phrases from Casanova and ends up writing them on her underwear and taking that away. That's very sexual without being explicit. We've gone for that rather than overt sexuality," he explains.

The female Casanova has brought Told By An Idiot together with contemporary poet Carol Ann Duffy. "We had the idea of reworking Casanova and we don't always work with a writer but felt this was an idea where we could collaborate with one," says Hunter. "We had read her collection, The World's Wife, which told about famous men from a female perspective. So we approached her and she said yes.

"We're both aware there are so many versions of Casanova and, because of that, if you do it you have to have a particular angle on it."

The story of the legendary lover appealed to Told By An Idiot's "house style" of imagery and visual theatre. "We don't have a philosophical or political agenda in terms of what we choose, it's more how we do it," says Carmichael.

"Even though I've played men in other shows there didn't seem any point in me playing Casanova as a man. It was more interesting to turn it over and make him a woman.

"There are very few examples where a woman has that licence or freedom that he had. Still in 2007, the notion of a woman living a life like that is unusual. Some people might say a woman wouldn't behave like a man, looking at a woman and saying, 'I'm going to have him' and make no judgement."

Carmichael finds it amazing that Casanova's life story, which he wrote in a book in old age, has lasted so long. "It does keep getting revived and it's not the sex, it's the desire to be spontaneous and live as you want," she says.

"A lot of people think he's a fictional character. We're turning it on its head and still giving a little bit of what's expected. You can't go so far away from the essentials or the truth. Even if there's no sex, there has to be something that suggests that."

HUNTER adds, "There are certain characters or stories where people expect things. If you don't deliver, then the audience feels slightly cheated- and it's not our desire to do that."

Told By An Idiot often collaborate with other artists on productions but working with a writer is unusual. He and Carmichael worked on a narrative, giving Duffy ideas for seven or eight scenes. "From that she's gone away and written it as a dark fairy tale about a woman called Casanova. That seems to work brilliantly. We felt there was no point in getting someone as wonderful as Carol Ann and telling her what to write," says Hunter.

They felt they needed moments of dialogue, although the words aren't always in English with an international cast of Albanian, Italian, Spanish and British performers. It's a marriage of Duffy's very poetic English and a slightly more naturalistic take in another language.

"Hopefully, the story is very visual. You don't need to understand Albanian or Italian to follow it," adds Hunter.

Visually, one of the biggest influences has been Fellini's film about Casanova starring Donald Sutherland, partly because its look is very theatrical. "We're not trying to do the film but that was our biggest first reference," says Hunter.

"The costumes have elements of the 18th century," adds Carmichael, "It looks like we're half-undressed a lot of the time. We try not to look completely like a period piece."

l Casanova: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, from tomorrow to September 29 (box office 0113-2137700) and Northern Stage, Newcastle, from October 23 to 27 (0191-230-5151)