Nearly a year ago, local actress Sue Dyson was wandering around a local open garden when she suddenly had a ‘Eureka’ moment.

Having just come off stage from the Company of Ten’s matinee of Bedroom Farce, performed to an extremely appreciative audience, she was so fired up that she said to Bob and Wendy May, of Hogg End, that it would be a wonderful location to put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

They immediately accepted and Sue’s Marmalade Theatre Company – named after the conserve she missed the most while living in Papua New Guinea – is putting on three performances of the Shakespeare comedy there next month.

For Sue, well-known to local theatre audiences, directing was a whole new ball game but after completing a directing course in Covent Garden and a day’s course run by Angela Stone and Terry Prince at the Abbey Theatre, she is now raring to go.

She waited until the Company of Ten and OVO had cast their end of season productions before recruiting her cast and is delighted with them.

She said: “I am very proud of my cast and they are absolutely fabulous. I am very excited by the whole thing.”

Rehearsals began around five weeks ago in St Michael’s parish centre and started on site a fortnight ago.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs from Thursday, July 3, to Saturday, July 5, at Hogg End gardens which are just off Redbourn Road in St Albans.

Gates open at 5.30pm each day for those wishing to bring or buy a picnic and performances start at 8pm. Sue joked: “Only a monsoon will stop it going ahead.”

The production is to raise money for Parkinson’s UK and for St Michael’s Church in St Albans.

Tickets at £12 or £10 concessions can be bought online at www.marmaladetheatre.com or by calling the box office on 07804 551763.