Shakespeare North reveals outdoor summer programme

A three-month summer season of outdoor performances has been announced by Shakespeare North Playhouse.

The busy programme of events will take place in the Prescot venue’s Sir Ken Dodd Performance Garden from June to the August Bank Holiday.

The season opens on June 4 when Festival Players presents Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the open-air space, followed by Oddsocks Productions’ Julius Caesar from June 13-15.

Songs and storytelling combine when Bay Bryan brings his solo show to the performance garden on June 20, and Jennifer Reid is joined by invited guests on June 21 for an evening of folk music and song, The Merrymakers.

The School of Night, named after the groups of 16th Century poets and scientists who gathered around Sir Walter Raleigh, brings its high-octane improv to Prescot in Hard Bardics, with two unique performances on June 27-28.

Cream-Faced Loons Theatre Company, known as The Loons, arrives at Shakespeare North on July 27 to perform Shakespeare – But Just the Deaths!

And Jennifer Reid, a performer of 19th Century Lancashire dialect and Victorian broadside ballads, returns on August 1 to present One Night in Prescot.

The season continues with The Pantaloons on August 2, who bring irresistible slapstick silliness to Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, while The HandleBards head for Prospero Place with The Comedy of Errors on August 6-7, and Shake-Scene Shakespeare makes its Prescot debut from August 15-17 with a double bill of As You Like It and Antony and Cleopatra.

Above: Alas! Poor Yorick. Top: 440 Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Folksy Theatre brings Angela Sprockets Pockets to the venue on August 20-21, and Alas! Poor Yorick (August 22-24) is an entertaining excavation of work and political systems through the eyes of the gravediggers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Four Forty Theatre is back with a British Summertime Shakespeare! Performing A Midsummer Night's Dream on August 27-28, with the Bard’s much-loved comedy being staged by four actors in 40 minutes. Or maybe an hour….

And finally, People Zoo Productions reconsider possibly Shakespeare’s most delightful romantic comedy from a different perspective in Much Adogberry About Nothing, coming to the performance garden from August 29-31.

For full details of the Sir Ken Dodd Performance Garden programme, visit the website HERE