Another Shakespeare double and a children’s classic make up the eagerly awaited 2015 season at the Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in Chester this summer.

The timeless romance Romeo and Juliet, the farcical comedy Merry Wives of Windsor and a new adaptation of The Wind in the Willows will keep audiences entertained throughout the summer weeks in the city beauty spot of Grosvenor Park.

The line-up adopts exactly the same format as the hugely successful 2014 season which saw Macbeth followed by The Comedy of Errors and The Secret Garden.

Running from July 3–August 23, the season will follow the sell-out performances of 2014, which saw extra shows added to meet with audience demand.

Alex Clifton, the company’s artistic director who will return for 2015, said: “This is a hugely ambitious and exciting programme for our 2015 season. I adored seeing our theatre so full of families last year, and hope they will want to come back and see The Wind in the Willows, and also try the brilliant and very silly Shakespeare comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor.

“These and the unsurpassable Romeo and Juliet will hopefully excite our fiercely intelligent audience and satisfy their hunger for great storytelling, high humour, and fiery passions.

“They will find a happy home in our city’s park, as it transforms into the hot-headed streets of Verona, a sunny English river bank or the parlour of a very English Shakespearean sit-com.”

Playwright Glyn Maxwell will return to the Chester theatre, after his successful 2013 adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, to adapt The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame’s all-time favourite story of Toad, Ratty, Badger and the Wild Wood.

The Merry Wives of Windsor was originally written at the express request of Elizabeth I, who wanted to see the return of the rogue Sir John Falstaff. A madcap tale of mischief and misbehaving, cuckoldry and humiliating revenge.

The greatest love story of all time, set in a fragile and hostile world, Romeo and Juliet will deliver the tragic chapter to the theatre’s season.

All three plays will once be staged in the unique, wooden ‘O’ shaped theatre, which has seen more than 70,000 theatregoers since it opened in 2010.

Tickets go on sale to Chester Performs members on Wednesday, January 28. Find out how to join at www.chesterperforms.com/membership . They go on general sale on Friday, February 6. Visit www.grosvenorparkopenairtheatre.co.uk for more information.