LUDLOW Festival’s 49th season opens on Saturday, June 21, with a wide variety of events on offer, from the traditional open-air Shakespeare to an eclectic choice of music and an exciting line-up of speakers.

This year’s production of Richard III at Ludlow Festival is a first – as well as a fourth – for the event.

It is the fourth time that Richard III is presented at the festival and the first time that Ludlow will present a co-production, with the Exeter Northcott Theatre Company.

Directed by Northcott’s artistic director, Ben Crocker, it will open in Ludlow Castle, running for the usual two weeks, before transferring to the Rougemont Gardens in Exeter for a further four weeks.

There is a certain synchronicity about the arrangement and an appropriateness about the choice of play for this co-production, with Ludlow Castle featuring in the first half of the play and Rougemont Castle in the second.

But there are also more practical reasons behind the decision to stage a co-production: “Both Northcott and Ludlow have a strong tradition of open-air Shakespeare that is very popular with the public,” says director Ben Crocker.

“But productions are extremely expensive to mount, so it made sense to do a production we could share.”

Last year saw Ludlow present Shakespeare’s shortest play, A Comedy of Errors, and this year Ben Crocker has the challenge of staging the second longest.

“It’s a mighty play,” he says. “As with a lot of the history plays, it contains a lot of plot and politics which you have to make accessible.

“It was originally written for an audience who knew the back story.

“Directing it in the 21st century, it’s a question of finding a way to make the story-telling as simple as possible, and using cuts to make the text more easily understood.”

The other challenge for a director, as it is with any of Shakespeare’s plays, is to make the production your own.

“You always approach any production you work on as if it’s the first time it’s been done,” Ben explains. “Inevitably, you have to try to make it your own.”

Ben promises that his Richard III will have a strong sense of history, with a set he hopes “looks as if it has grown out of Ludlow Castle”, although it is not particularly true to its historical period, “as it would not have been in Shakespeare’s time”.

A dramatic setting can only add to the impact of a dramatic story: “It’s a really good story, one that’s always been popular with audiences,” he says.

“It has a compelling central character and audiences enjoy going on that journey with him.”

Richard III is at Ludlow Castle from Saturday, June 21, to Saturday, July 5. Evening performances are at 8.30pm from June 21 to July 5, with matinees at 2.30pm on Wednesdays, June 25, and July 2, and a family matinee on Saturday, June 28, at 4pm.

To book, call the festival box office on 01584 872150 or visit ludlowfestival.co.uk On the music front, the festival welcomes the return of the internationally renowned Opera Babes and a performance from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

To close the festival, a concert billed as “the biggest Sixties event ever”, features The Manfreds joined by original artists PJ Proby, Vanity Fare, Chris Farlow, Brian Poole and Mike Pender, and a grand firework display.

For details of the full festival programme, visit ludlowfestival.co.uk