Calderstones Mansion announces 2025 open-air season shows

Five open-air touring productions will be staged in the Garden Theatre at Calderstones Mansion this summer.

Travelling theatre troupes the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, The Handlebards, Illyria and The Fabularium will visit The Reader-run venue during July and August.

And ahead of that, Liverpool’s Bookworm Players will present a special family-friendly indoor Easter production of Alice in Wonderland, with two showings in the Mansion House Theatre Room on Monday, April 21.

The summer season kicks off in the art deco-style outdoor theatre with a visit from the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who return to Liverpool to present Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on July 10.

The production is staged with an all-male cast and Elizabethan costumes, music and dance.

The Handlebards cycle into Calderstones on August 1 with the much-loved Much Ado About Nothing. The four-strong cast promises an evening of music and manic costume changes aplenty.

The season continues with a visit by award-winning outdoor theatre company Illyria. This year marked the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and to celebrate it is presenting Pride and Prejudice on August 3.

Then family theatre company and festival favourite The Fabularium brings Pan and the Eternal Wreck to the Garden Theatre for two performances on August 13.

And finally, Illyria returns on August 21 to stage Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera HMS Pinafore.

All the performances apart from Pan and the Eternal Wreck are evening shows.

Priority booking is now open for Calderstones Members and tickets go on general sale on Monday, February 17.

Mary Crotty, engagement manager for The Reader in Calderstones Park, said: “We’re truly excited to be welcoming back six theatre companies to perform at The Mansion House this Easter and for our summer 2025 season.

“Calderstones really is the perfect setting - there is no other outdoor-theatre venue like it. From children's theatre to Jane Austen and Shakespeare, we invite all the members of our community to come together. We’re very lucky to work with such talented theatre makers whose performances enhance our core programme of Shared Reading.

“As a national charity championing Shared Reading based in the heart of Liverpool’s Calderstones Park, we believe passionately in the power of literature, great plays and live performance to inspire creativity, ignite the imagination and to change lives for the better.”

For full details and booking visit the website HERE

Top: Romeo and Juliet in the art deco Garden Theatre at Calderstones Mansion in 2024.