TWO Shakespeare tales and a new version of children's classic The Borrowers are to be performed in the great outdoors in this year's Chester Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre season.

The season – the 10th to be held – opens on Friday, July 5 with Twelfth Night until August 24.

Shakespeare’s comedy about cross dressing and mistaken identities will be directed by Julia Thomas (A Clockwork Orange, Curve).

Later that month, the Bard’s history play, Henry V (July 26-August 25) will be directed by Loveday Ingram (Julius Caesar, Storyhouse).

Mary Norton’s story of little people who borrow in order to survive, The Borrowers (July 13-August 25) will complete the programme. Directing that play will be Katie Posner (Swallows and Amazons Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre).

Alex Clifton, artistic director at Storyhouse, said: "It is so wonderful to be on sale with this summer’s park shows – a monumental year as we celebrate being double figures!

"Our productions will explore borders – whether real or imagined, being a stranger in a foreign land and the impact of leaving home. Like all of our season's audiences can expect to feel joy, heartache and be riveted beneath our starry roof."

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre was founded in 2010. Its first productions, Much Ado About Nothing and Hercules, were staged on a simple wooden platform stage, for three weeks to an audience of 2,500.

In 10 years, it has moved from a small stage, to a thrust stage to a full in the round theatre. More than 40 per cent of its seats are now covered, and its capacity has doubled.

The theatre now welcomes around 27,000 theatregoers for eight weeks each summer.