Maidstone-based theatre company Changeling have announced the two plays they will perform across the county in the summer of 2018.

After a poll among audience members during their 20th anniversary tour of Hamlet, the company will stage two plays: William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

The company’s summer tour, which will be their 21st, takes them to venues from castles and parks to beaches and stately homes across the county and beyond each year throughout the summer.

Full dates and tour venues won’t be announced until February, but opening and closing weekends, traditionally held at Boughton Monchelsea Place in Maidstone, will be held on Friday, June 29 2018 to Sunday, August 19.

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure was written between 1603 and 1604 and its main themes are include justice, mortality and mercy in Vienna.

First performed in 1941, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit is a comic play centring on socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house.

Announcing the play choice, artistic director Rob Forknall, who is currently starring in The Woodville’s panto, Sleeping beauty, said: “We have waited so long to stage Measure for Measure, and we can’t tell you how excited we are to be touring it in 2018. And of course, Coward is a Changeling favourite and a writer very close to my heart.

“Our summer tour goes from strength to strength – we’ve even more new venues in store for next year.”

For details, visit changeling-theatre.com