NORTH Country Theatre, The professional touring company, based in Richmond, is to celebrate 20 years of creating new shows with an open air production of Twelfth Night.

It will be the first time that Nobby Dimon has directed a Shakespeare play. He has chosen to set it in 1930s' Riviera style as this period fits the idle rich characters and situations in the mysterious Mediterranean principality of Illyria.

Venues chosen for six local performances between June 23 and July 2 are Aske Hall, Bolton Castle and Kiplin Hall.

The cast comprises nine professional actors who have all worked with the company over the years. Mr Dimon will play Malvolio, famously cross-gartered in yellow stockings.

Vivienne Garnett, who has appeared in nine previous productions with North Country Theatre, plays Viola as well as acting as assistant director.

Other regulars are Mark Cronfield, Tom Frere, Simon Kirk, Liam McCormick, Susan Jinks, Amelia Newbould and Martin Dower, plus Shep the Dog.

Musician Dave Harris has set Shakespeare's songs to well-known 1930s' tunes which will be played by a ukulele band.

Dates of performances are: Aske Hall, June 23 and 24; Bolton Castle, June 29 and 30; and Kiplin Hall, July 1 and 2. Audiences are invited to take chairs or rugs and picnics. Gates open from 6pm and performances begin at 7.30pm.

Advance tickets are £12 available from North Country Theatre on 01748 825288, online at northcountrytheatre.com and from Castle Hill Bookshop. Tickets at the gate on the night will be £15.

North Country Theatre's ground-breaking adaptation of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps opened at the Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, in 1996. The play has been seen by thousands worldwide and ran in the West End for nearly ten years.

Over the following 20 years, the company has created more than 30 touring productions, three large-scale community plays, educational projects for primary school children and site specific interpretative dramas for venues as varied as Brodsworth Hall, Fountains Abbey and Kiplin Hall.

Vivienne Garnett played in suspected spy in Imitation Game (2005), virtuous virgin Mak the Sheepstealer (2005), sinister selkie in Lighthouse on Shivering Sands (2012) and a prehistoric prostitute The Gift of Stones (2015).

Thomas Frere was Hannay in the original The 39 Steps and has appeared in countless productions, most recently Month in the Country (2014) and Egil Skallagrimsson (2016), as well as directing, writing and educational work.

Mark Cronfield appeared in Moll Flanders (2003) and in a dozen roles since as varied as Starbuck in Moby Dick (2003), the boy in Rocking Horse Winner (2012) and Bartle in Blame it on Bartle (2014).

Simon Kirk was in Cartimandua (2000), learnt magic tricks for The Electrical Wizard of the North (2007), Indian dancing for The Man Who Would Be King (2007) and attemped to control a giant doll's house on wheels in a gale in Prisoner of Zenda (2008).

Stripped to the waist and wrestling dinosaurs, the 24-year-old Liam McCormick created a frisson among females in audiences for The Lost World (2000). He was a robot in 2001:Space Idiocy (2001) and a monk in The Confession of Brother Wormwood (2005).

Susan Louise Jinks appeared in Northanger Abbey (2001), met her future husband David Harris (musical director), moved from London and never returned. She was in The Passion Plays (2002), Moll Flanders (2003) and the tenth anniversary revival of The 39 Steps (2006).

Amelia Newbould made her professional debut playing teenager Hope as well as animating a broomstick farmer in Home on the Range (2009). Martin Dower is remembered for his lead role in Meantime 1999 as John Harrison, the clockmaker, who solved the problem of measuring longitude at sea. He was the Dalesman in Last Dance of a Dalesman (2005).

Mr Dimon has written and directed more than 30 productions for the company, acted in many of them, from The 39 Steps to freezing in a toga for Cartimandua in 2000 and gave a moving performance as an old man losing his talent for storytelling in The Gift of Stones (2015).