JENNY SCOTT meets the Lancashire people involved in a pioneering outdoor Shakespeare production which has attracted enthusiastic crowds to an imposing stately home.

FOR the first time in 400 years, Shakespeare has returned to Hoghton Tower. This week, as the curtain went up on a travelling version of Twelfth Night, staged in the grounds of the 16th century manor house, enthusiasts were rubbing their hands at the prospect of a pleasing historic convergence.

The Bard is believed to have lived at the tower and tutored the younger members of the de Hoghton family back in the 1600s, but his works have not been performed there until now.

Even more fitting, one of the players who is helping to bring about Shakespeare's return to Hoghton is himself making an emotional pilgrimage back to East Lancashire.

Knight Mantell, 59, who plays the Bard's tragi-comic creation Malvolio, was born and raised in the Feniscowles area of Blackburn and has fond recollections of the venue where he is currently donning cross-gartered yellow stockings on a nightly basis.

"When I saw the job advertised, it brought back so many memories," said London-based Knight, of his decision to take the part.

"It must be 50 years since I even thought about Hoghton Tower.

"We used to come here for picnics when I was a child.

"It hasn't changed much, although Blackburn has changed a lot. I travelled back there in between rehearsals and it doesn't look at all as I remember it. Many of the buildings I used to know seem to have disappeared."

After studying at Manchester University, Knight moved into acting, performing alongside many big names.

He worked at Manchester Library Theatre alongside the likes of Alec Guinness, Wendy Craig and Maggie Smith and later moved into directing. During his long career he has played Malvolio before, in Cheltenham, but says he can't remember much about it.

"Every time you do another part, you find something different. It's experience full stop, rather than experience of a certain part that matters."

Certainly, the experience of playing Twelfth Night at Hoghton is particularly special for Knight.

As the action moves from Orsino's court to Olivia's gardens and the shores of Illyria where the shipwrecked Viola finds herself, so do the cast and audience move from Hoghton's stately courtyard to its authentic Tudor gardens, as each act is given a different location.

Knight said: "The setting is absolutely wonderful.

"The gardens are full of box trees and little arches, which are ideal for the scene in which Malvolio finds the letter in the garden and is being watched by the other characters.

"I'm also enjoying this production because Malvolio is such a wonderful character to play. He has an enormous range, between po-faced and serious, to comedic and then tragic.

"There aren't many parts that have that kind of growth. He's a serious man on a banana skin."

Another man who is relishing the chance to bring Shakespeare back to Hoghton is director Dean Taylor.

Dean, from Walton-le-Dale, again has the Lancashire connections to know the significance of the occasion.

"To walk in the footsteps of the Bard is inspiring," said Dean, who runs the company Dean Taylor Associates, which is staging Twelfth Night.

"Sir Bernard de Hoghton has long had the idea of cementing in the public mind the connection between the tower and William Shakespeare.

"Because I happen to live locally, he came to me and asked if I would be interested. I outlined some ideas that seemed to appeal."

Some of those ideas included performing in the open air, in several different locations around the tower -- following a practice Dean has followed in other productions performed in similarly stately settings.

He said: "To perform like that at somewhere like Hoghton gives you a lot more scope. It breaks with traditional theatrical convention and gingers things up a little.

"To play against that backdrop gives you a real, epic feel."

This week's good weather has also made things easier, although Dean has the option of Hoghton's Great Barn as a venue if the rain decides to "raineth every day."

"There's a wonderful atmosphere about the place," he said. "As a company, we're all quite thrilled with the Shakespearean connection."

Twelfth Night runs at Hoghton Tower until July 12 every evening at 7.30pm (evenings at 4pm), matinees daily at 2pm (except Sundays).

Tickets cost £15 for adults and £12.50 children and concessions. For more information call (01254) 851185.