From Aled Jones to Shakespeare, and Abba to Jane Austen, there’s plenty to keep us entertained outdoors this summer. Barbara Hodgson checks out what’s on.

YOU can tell summer has well and truly arrived when outdoor concerts and theatre jostle for room in the cultural calendar. The lure of entertainment and fireworks on a balmy evening – if we’re lucky – brings out the picnic-lover in all of us.

And if we need any more persuasion to stick a bottle of wine and a hamper in the car boot, then the National Trust provides it this very week with a Shakespeare comedy classic at Gibside in Gateshead and Wallington in Northumberland.

The family programme begins with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, being performed as part of a summer triple-bill by awarding-winning open-air theatre company Illyria, which is also bringing The Three Musketeers and The Mowgli Stories in August.

Shakespeare’s tale of love, mischief and magic will be brought to life with a twist on Friday in Gibside’s Walled Garden and on Saturday in the courtyard of Wallington Hall.

While forecasters have been predicting a mini-heatwave, sturdy Northerners can be assured that the performances will happen come rain or come shine.

Audiences are invited to make the most of the occasion by bringing a picnic, low-backed chairs and rugs.

The Illyria theatre company, said to have performed to more people over a wider area than any other open-air touring company with shows across the UK, Europe and the US, has won international awards.

So those who can’t make this week’s entertainment might want to catch up with it in August, when Alexandre Dumas’s comic adventure The Three Musketeers is being performed at Wallington on August 1 then at Gibside on August 16; and The Mowgli Stories, a reworking of Rudyard Kipling’s much-loved classic, can be seen at Gibside on August 6 and at Wallington on August 22.