Sponsors get together to fund open-air performance

However, a number of high -profile business people have decided to join forces to ensure that one of Shakespeare's best- loved comedies is performed in Yorkshire this summer.

Sprite Productions has attracted a host of business sponsors for its production of As You Like It, which will be staged at Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, from June 22 to July 11.

So far TL Dallas Insurance, Odgens of Harrogate, Osprey Special Risk Management, Newton Finance, Raworths Solicitors, Cicada Communications and accountancy firm Calvert and Smith have signed up to give the project their backing.

The play's director, Alex Hassell, who has worked with the likes of Jude Law, will arrive for rehearsals after working on a new Roland Emmerich film which deals with the theory that Shakespeare's plays were written by the Earl of Oxford.

For further information visit the website www.spriteproductions.co.uk