It's been 13 years since the day that Neal Foster and members of the Birmingham Stage Company found themselves in the office wondering what show to put on next.

"Our education director, Ellen said 'what about Horrible Histories?'," recalls Neal, "so I called Terry Deary (creator of the Horrible Histories) and the rest is - pretty good - history.

"I created a relationship with Terry which still works today," says Neal, "and together we set about putting on stage shows and we're now in our 12th year

The first show was the Tudors and Victorians, and then six years ago, the company started what has become Barmy Britons in the West End, and "they have become fantastically successful. The IMAX theatre phoned us one day and asked would we like to bring them into the West End. The first production of Barmy Britons ran for nine months, the longest running children's theatre show. Then we did Barmy Britons II and now we're doing the Best of Barmy Britons, the show that will come to The Courtyard on Monday, June 12.

"Those of us acting in it particularly like the story of Burke and Hare (whose reputation as bodysnatchers is, says Neal, plain wrong "they were murderers - killing 16 people in the course of a single year). We've made it just about funny enough to counter the darkness of the story."

But, he adds, "the best scene ever is the Henry VIII scene that Terry Deary wrote for Barmy Britons - it's a great scene between Henry and Anne Boleyn." Beyond that, he's giving away nothing more.

The Best of ... tells the entire story of Britain, starting with the Romans and covering 2,000 years - "but we pick and choose our moments. So we see Boudica and her attempt to beat off the Romans and we meet King John as he's forced to sign the Magna Carta. We try to survive the Black Death in Wales and meet Guy Fawkes on the unmissable TV show 'Who Wants to Blow up Parliament?

"Next year we'll be doing More Best of Barmy Britons, so all the sketches we couldn't squeeze into this one are going into that, and there'll also be a Barmy Britons Part 4!

"Given that we now have people like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage I think Barmy Britons has a secure future!"

Unusually, the Birmingham Stage Company is entirely self-funding. Though the company did once get a small grant of £17,000 from Birmingham City Council "But it was more debilitating than empowering, because we didn't know what to do with what was a very small amount, so after the three years funding ended we said we didn't want any more.

"What has really made us is the touring. (At one time the company had five shows out on tour. It's amazing what you can do in terms of output without any funding. The only thing you can't do without funding it put on new work - not unless you have a star name."

BSC have produced shows adapted from the work of leading children's authors Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, Terry Deary of course and most recently, David Walliams. "It's great to work with living writers," says Neal.

"About five years ago I decided that we should concentrate on children's theatre as by doing so we could become one of the top companies producing children's theatre in the world. And that's led to some of the biggest people in the business coming to us to ask if we would be interested in working with them. It was because of our track record that David Walliams did Gangsta Granny with us and that's been fantastically successful.

We're really looking forward to bringing Best of Barmy Britons to Hereford. We wanted it to go to smaller venues. We recently did it in Telford, where the excitement was so palpable it was electric.

The Best of Barmy Britons is at The Courtyard from Monday, June 12 to Wednesday, June 14. To book, call the box office on 01432 340555 or visit courtyard.org.uk