Viv Hardwick finds out how Shakespeare’s Globe brings the Bard to North Yorkshire.

THE outdoor expanses of Ripley, Castle, near Harrogate, and Newby Hall, near Ripon, and the tiny interior of Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal are worlds apart in terms of size, but all three will host visits from touring versions of Shakespeare’s Globe plays.

Next month’s The Comedy Of Errors, will be followed in August by the always-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream .

The Dream’s award-winning director, Raz Shaw, says of taking the Globe on tour: “It couldn’t be more different, but having the spirit of Shakespeare’s Globe behind us means that the essentials will stay the same whether you are indoors or outdoors.

“The audience don’t go into the dark and you can’t hide the fact that they’re there and the moment you ignore them and disconnect then the danger is you disconnect from the play. The ethos of the Globe is to include the audience and use them as part of the world you are in. I think when we go inside in Richmond the spirit will still be there. “What we want to keep is the spirit of the world and the dream-like world we have created.”

Does the popularity and long history of The Dream make it harder to take a new production out on the road?

“No, I don’t think so. Essentially the old adage of George Devine, who started London’s Royal Court Theatre, applies in that ‘you have to treat each new play as a classic and every classic like it was a new play’. We all know the history behind A Midsummer Night’s Dream and we’ve all seen the work a number of times so all you can do in the rehearsal is treat what you have in front of you.

“The fact that this play is done thousands of times around the world every year is sort of irrelevant, but relevant too because you have the confidence of history. I’ve done a lot of new plays and one of the things is that you don’t know, apart from having an instinct, how that play will work in front of an audience. But you don’t know until you get it in front of an audience. The confidence of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is that you know it works and therefore all we can do is to take it and make it as unique and original production as we can.”

Shaw wanted to create a charming celebration of theatre and love, linked to the very English world of sitting on a picnic blanket watching a show in the sun, while eating an ice cream.

“Essentially, what it’s become is that the play has a charming Thirties Brideshead feel about it, a kind of English tea party atmosphere,” he says.

Was he tempted to follow the lead of the Royal Shakespeare Company and make the relationship between Bottom and Titania even sexier?

“There are four young lovers and, whatever that might mean, they know what they want to do with each other.

You can’t avoid that. If you take it as far as it suggests in the play there may or may not be happenings between Bottom (Will Mannering) as the ass and Titania (Cate Hamer), queen of the fairies. You’ve got to chose what is the most important part of the story.

“Because of the way we’ve portrayed the fairies, which I don’t want to give away yet because it’s quite unique, I feel the story is a dream-like exploration of love. Love comes in many forms so you have to be true to what that means,” Shaw explains.

Despite winning the 2006 Jerwood Directors Award he claims he is only as good as his next show.

And Shaw jokes that in the first three days the cast had scorching hot sun and got sunburnt, then it was windy “and lots of things we hadn’t thought of just blew away” and then it poured with rain.

“I told the cast I’d asked the powers that be to give us all the elements of an entire season at the same time so we could get used to them… now they’re ready for anything.”

■ Shakespeare’s Globe On Tour, The Comedy Of Errors, Ripley Castle, July 7-8; Georgian Theatre Royal, July 9-12.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Newby Hall, August 18-19, Georgian Theatre Royal, August 20-23.

Tour Box Office: 020-7401-9919 shakespeares-globe.org Georgian Theatre Royal: 01748- 825252 georgiantheatreroyal.co.uk ■ Shakespeare’s Globe’s current London season includes Romeo And Juliet, As You Like It, Troilus And Cressida and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Tickets: £5-33. 020-7401-9919 or 020-7087-7398.