BRINGING fun and easily-digestible Shakespeare to Leighton Hall, the Festival Players will return to the area this Friday (July 25).
Leighton Hall will provide a stunning backdrop for the performance of Much Ado About Nothing for the annual Shakespeare in the Garden tour.
Focusing on Beatrice and Benedick who both despise love and engage in comic banter, the love-hate relations
hip features a right royal
battle of the sexes.
The pair's close friends and family plot to make them fall in love with each other, by trickery in which Benedick overhears his friends talking of Beatrice's supposed secret love for him, and vice versa.
Director Michael Dyer says it will be his fourth all-male production in a row for the Players. "Three years ago there were some raised eyebrows when we performed A Midsummer Night's Dream without actresses.
"Since then we have had all-male productions of Hamlet and As You Like It. But the feedback proved that most people were intrigued by the idea and liked what they saw. Although it might seem unusual today to field an all-male cast it is in fact totally authentic – we are just following in the footsteps of Shakespeare's own Elizabethan Globe Theatre when all the roles were taken by men."
Leighton's grounds open at 6pm for pre-performance picnics and the show will start at 7.30pm.
Visitors should bring along their own seating and as it is an open-air production they are advised to bring some extra layers – just in case.
* Tickets are priced at £12.50 for adults and £9 for children are available from Leighton Hall on 01524 734474, Lancaster TIC on 01524 32878 and Morecambe TIC on 01524 582808.
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