BRIDPORT: Grab your picnic blanket and be prepared for riotous comedy as theatre company Illyria is returning to the town with its new open air production, Robin Hood.

Complete with an archery competition involving the whole audience, this is a performance not to be missed.

Adapted from the earliest Robin Hood ballads, written in fast-moving, easy-to-follow verse, and introducing all the well-loved characters such as Little John and Friar Tuck, these are tales of camaraderie and swashbuckling action.

Robert Fitzooth, Earl of Huntingdon, is arrested for disrupting the peace on the day of his marriage to Marian Fitzwater.

But he evades capture and hides out in Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaws under the assumed name of Robin Hood.

The company’s previous performances in Bridport, such as Pirates of Penzance, Mikado and Shakespeare’s Henry V have been well received.

Illyria was created in 1991, and ever since has delighted audiences the length and breadth of the UK, and in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Canada.

The touring company has also won four international ‘Best Performance’ awards and attracted numerous five star and critics’ choice reviews for the lively clarity of its approach to Shakespeare’s plays, the high quality of its shows for families and the refreshing originality of its adaptations of English classics. Catch Robin Hood on the Millennium Green from 7pm on Friday, August 15.

As it is an outdoor production, people are advised to dress appropriately for the weather and bring a low-backed chair or rug to sit on.