Shakespeare as you like it is the promise from Pantaloons Theatre Company when they bring Play On! to the Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans next weekend.

The show, part of the city’s festival celebrating the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death, is an evening of Shakespearean spontaneity as a team of professional actors play their way through some of the Bard’s funniest scenes with the audience as the director.

The cast has to implement audience suggestions on the fly.

The Pantaloons began life 10 years ago as an open-air theatre company, busking plays for donations in parks and on the streets, where they developed their performance style.

Artistic director, Stephen Purcell, said: “We characterise our work as post-modern folk theatre. We take well-loved tales and give them a contemporary twist, making them accessible for new audiences and showing seasoned fans something that they perhaps had not seen in them before.”

“In this new show the audience will be the ones providing the twist for us and it’s up to our highly-skilled team of actors to accept whatever offers they are given by the audience and use them spontaneously in specially-selected Shakespearean scenes.”

Play On! can be seen at 8pm next Sunday, May 8, and tickets from £7.50 to £12.50 can be obtained from the St Albans Shakespeare Festival website.