A busy new season is getting underway at the Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans which has just launched its May to August programme of fringe theatre.

Among the highlights will be a performance of Harold Pinter’s play Betrayal – a love triangle which explores the complexity of the human heart – by StageSpell Theatre Company which is being performed from May 28-31

Resident theatre company OVO’s flagship production for the summer is Shakespeare’s The Tempest which can be seen in June. Deposed duke Prospero has endured 12 years of imprisonment until he conjures up a great storm that will throw his enemies into his power.

OVO’s 14th Shakespeare production will also be performed in the open air at St Paul’s Walden Bury.

An adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, becomes a one-man show in July while later in the same month, Maltings associate company Peppermint Muse preview their new production Lavender Junction.

Written and performed by Lisa White, and en route to C Venues at the Edinburgh Fringe, the play is set against the backdrop of colonial India and inspired by a true story. Dyad Productions, the creators of The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe and Female Gothic, return to the theatre in late July with Dalloway, another Fringe preview that has been adapted by Elton Townend Jones from Virginia Woolf’s classic novel.

Moliere’s commedia dell’arte romp or Rom Com in Corsets, The School for Husbands, will be served up as a season finale by DOT Productions on Saturday, August 16.

Programming director for the arts theatre, Imogen de la Bere, commented: “We’re extremely excited by this season’s programming and the growing audience loyalty to our mix of core fringe theatre and entertaining events.

“We are also delighted to welcome a special selection of Edinburgh Fringe shows for our theatre-goers to preview before August’s festival.”

Further information about The Maltings arts theatre can be found at www.maltingsartstheatre.co.uk