Preview: Twelfth Night, Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, until July 13

9:40am Friday 27th June 2008

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SPRITE Productions are in their fourth summer season at Ripley Castle, and in every way the company is expanding.

Whereas debut production A Midsummer Night’s Dream ran for a fortnight, this season’s Shakespeare show, Twelfth Night, will take on the North Yorkshire elements for four weeks.

Director Lucy Kerbel is utilising more of the castle’s grounds than ever before in a promenade performance that surveys the lake and wends it path through the woods, orchards and walled gardens.

What’s more, the company has announced already that next summer’s production of The Tempest will be performed mostly on or around the lake.

This summer also sees Sprite presenting a second show for the first time at Ripley, albeit for one night only, when companion company The Factory presents its experimental production of Hamlet, as seen in a different, spontaneous guise each time it is staged in London.

Next year, the second show will be full-scale, a specially commissioned work by Knight Mantell, in which a small, modern group of touring actors will tell the tale of the Ingilby family’s 700-year residency of Ripley.

“It’s a big year for us this year, and the next few years will be as well,” says Liam Evans-Ford, the company’s artistic director and producer.

“I’ve been hassling one and all that we’re not just a normal outdoor theatre company, and by bringing Hamlet here for one night I can see if there’s an appetite for a second show next year.

“We’ve also gone to a four-week run for our main show, which is the longest we’ve had, so it’s a big push. “Last year we increased it to three weeks, and the rain meant that we had to take five shows into the big top tent in the wood – and we still had to cancel one of those for safety reasons as water was seeping through the floor – but we coped with everything that was thrown at us through our advance sales, and this year’s advance sales have been even better.”

The production team of Lucy Kerbel and costume designer Hayley Nebauer reunites from past years, and just as the cast combines old and new members, so the company continues to combine continuity with innovation.

For example, ten costume makers from Huddersfield University have made the bespoke costumes from Hayley’s designs, with their handiwork being graded by the designer as part of their course work.

In the company’s most radical step yet, negotiations are under way with Sir Thomas and Lady Ingilby with regard to establishing a permanent 500-seat open-air theatre in the castle grounds as “the Globe of the North”.

The Ingilbys are said to be enthusiastic; now Liam must draw up plans with prospective architects and find the requisite finance to fund the project. If The Tempest can walk on water next year, then surely anything is possible.

Sprite Productions present Twelfth Night, at Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, until July 13, plus The Factory’s Hamlet, for one night only, on July 7 at 7pm. Box office: 01423 770632.