Join the Merry Wives in The Secret Gardens

The Merry Wives of Windsor will be crossing a couple of counties – and speeding through a couple of centuries! – when they appear in the famous Shakespearean comedy at The Secret Gardens of Sandwich next month.

The play, being performed by The Hazlitt Changeling Theatre, takes place in this wonderful Jekyll-inspired setting at the heart of East Kent on Wednesday, July 7 – but it won’t be the Merry Wives as we know it.

The play is one of Shakespeare’s best-known comedic farces, which tells the tale of three ladies, their husbands and Sir John Falstaff, who is after their money… and more!

Commissioned by Elizabeth I and written rather quickly by Shakespeare, it’s one of the only English comedies written by the Bard and was the ‘Only Fools and Horses’ of its time.

However, this year’s production has been brought up to date with a bang by director Rob Forknall who has set the scene in the 1950s, with skiffle songs, quiffs and some good old Rock’n'Roll!

The Hazlitt Changeling Theatre has been taking top-quality open air theatre to its admiring public for the past ten years at a range of alluring venues throughout the county, to which The Secret Gardens of Sandwich is the latest addition.

Gates open at 6pm on what is hopefully going to be a glorious summer’s evening, when visitors will get chance to stroll around the gardens and relax before the 7.30pm performance.

The gardens are the epitome of an English Country Garden, with 3.5 acres of stunning beds, borders, meadows and woodland, devised at the turn of the century by Gertrude Jekyll and lovingly restored over the past four years by Head Gardener Steve Edney and his team.

Unseen for almost a quarter of a century, they have been brought back to life at a cost of more than £2 million by the present owners, Dominic and Stephanie Parker.

If you can’t make it down to Sandwich to meet the Merry Wives and their entourage, The Secret Gardens are open seven days a week, throughout the year. From now until September 30, opening hours are from 10am to 5pm, closing at 4pm from October through to December.

Tickets for the one-off performance are now on sale from the Hazlitt Arts Centre Box Office Maidstone (01622 758611) or Deal Festival Box Office (telephone 01304 381134)

For more information contact Jane Shotliff on 01622 870272 or Simon Clubley at The Wow Factory on 01233 713 852.