For the rest of the year aspiring thespians are content to spend their evenings dreaming about what could have been if they hadn't been forced into a life of accountancy, but come June their egos get the better of them and just around about now the madness is full blown.

It may be a fairly recent phenomena, but al fresco Shakespeare is proving difficult to shake-off and depending where you live in the county, this year you could have taken an uncomfortable seat for Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing... the list goes on. And on.

In fact it's become almost impossible to wander round a picturesque location during the summer months without being confronted by an unconvincing-looking Hamlet.

Now there are those who see this surfeit of iambic pentameter as evidence that we are becoming more cultured, that for once the highest common denominator is winning.

Sadly most of the productions on offer are uninspired, playing to audiences fat not on Falstaffian capons, but pastry items and warm white wine. The British climate doesn't help and, as the cast bravely pretend a heavy downpour only adds to the atmosphere, often the biggest excitement comes from predicting at what key moment the obligatory aircraft will fly overhead.

Entire professional companies have been set up to fill the gap in the market when traditional theatres go dark. Grabbing the best locations they have a head start when it comes to getting bums on seats, but the end result is little better.

In any outdoor Shakespeare production there will be at least one actor clearly still hurting from failing to live up to predictions he was going to be the next big thing, another who believes he actually is in RADA and at least one female who has fallen for the old schoolboy error that a West Country accent is comic genius.

Now I like Shakespeare almost as much as M&S mini scotch eggs – having spent my parent's hard-earned money studying for a degree in English literature it would be impolite to say otherwise.

At its very best a production of Macbeth still has the power to get the hairs standing on the back of your neck and even the comedies, with their almost interchangeable plots and characters, prove the Bard's global reputation almost 400 years after his death is justified. But enough is enough.

On paper, taking Shakespeare outdoors should be an opportunity for those who don't normally step inside a theatre to get a taste for the dramatic, but with tickets for a family of four often costing the best part of £50, who but the middle classes can ever afford to go?

Given that, in his day, Shakespeare was the playwright and entertainer of the hoi polloi, that really would have him turning in his grave.