The Northern Shakespeare Company is using the North-East to take the Bard to Dubai.

TAKING A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Dubai by way of Darlington sounds an intriguing prospect… particularly when the man at the helm introduces himself as Alan Brent (he laughs amiably about sharing a surname with Ricky Gervais’ antihero of TV’s The Office).

The Thirk-based ex-RAF and businessman is a late convert to full-time acting and is painfully honest about the personal and professional experiences which took him to the Scottish Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in his mid-Thirties.

Having gone through an unpleasant divorce and hung onto his Millhouse home in spite of having to sell a successful investment brokerage – “then been hit by a 40 per cent capital gains bill” – Brent went on to land work with the Royal Shakespeare Company ensemble.

“The audition panel said I was too old and too tall at 6ft 3ins. I challenged them by saying ‘so you’re going to ask a 15-year-old to play Falstaff?’ and they laughed and gave me a job,” he reveals.

The desire to do Shakespeare was fired at school in home town Huddersfield but it was a chance meeting with Darlington’s NE Representation, with premises overlooking the Market Square, which finally led to Brent forming the Northern Shakespeare Company (NSC).

“I’d talked to Alison McKay of NE about her company becoming my agent about five years ago, but they were more into models and extra work at that time. I was impressed and went back to them when I started recruiting actors who wanted somewhere that was easily accessible to rehearse like the centre of Darlington,” explains the actor who has just relinquished running Yorkshire’s Equity branch after seven years.

Teesside actors Mark Benton and Bill Fellows were among the first company members – Fellows will star as Oberon and Theseus in the June production of Dream, but Benton is busy. Pirates of the Caribbean film cast member Jonathan Linsley will direct and play Peter Quince as the 13-strong cast gathers in Darlington next month to rehearse for three weeks before flying to stage five shows in four days at Dubai’s Madinat Jumeira Theatre.

North Yorkshire’s Dean Julian, as Starveling/Philostrate, and Newcastle’s Bethany Minelle, as Hermia, are others happy to be back on home turf with NSC.

Amazingly, Brent reckons the setting-up costs are as low as £30,000 with the Arab company employing NSC taking the main risk of hiring the venue for around £120,000. “We’ll be doing three shows out there over the next nine months. Then we’ll be doing three to four shows a year and looking to tour throughout the UAE,” says NSC’s founder. He’s restricting his own involvement to playing Hermia’s father Egeus and the amusing antics of Tom Snout’s Wall because Brent is travelling out early to Dubai to ensure everything is in place for opening night on June 17. The excitement of NSC’s arrival has so captured the imagination of NE’s Alison McKay that she’s agreed to play the role of Fairy and act as costume designer.

“Dubai wants really traditional stuff. Romeo and Juliet will be our second production and I really want to do Twelfth Night but they’re pushing and pushing for others.”

The company is a little more cautious about when Darlington might catch a glimpse of its new Shakespearean stars.

“We’d certainly like to stage something in Olympic year, 2012, which is also the year of Shakespeare and it would be easier if we had Arts Council support or even a sponsor who offered us something like a warehouse. I’d like the money so we could move on to other projects in the North-East.

“We could put on something in Middlesbrough or Darlington to rival the RSC’s Newcastle season at about half the price. We’ve got the stars to knock the spots off them,” he says.

■ There is a shortage of digs for actors visiting the Darlington area from May 26 and NSC have asked for people who can offer a room to contact: northernshakespeareco@hotmail.com