THE Wind In The Willows is the first open-air production in a five-year partnership between theatre-maker Phil Grainger, his York and Easingwold troupe Gobbledigook Theatre Company and the Bolton Abbey Estate.
Grainger is artist in residence for a year at this most perfect of settings for outdoor shows. "I love to tell stories in the places they're set," he says in his programme notes.
"I'd much rather produce a show about the beach on a beach, rather than in a theatre with lots of amazing effects. This is why The Wind In The Willows is so perfect here. I came to look at the estate and in the first ten minutes, I had found Ratty's River, Badger's Set and Toad Hall."
Set design by nature, you could say, courtesy of the River Wharfe, a dip in the land and the manicured grounds of the Devonshire family seat respectively, complemented by Tabitha Grove's wonderful eye for costumes as she prepares to take up an apprenticeship in the BBC costume department.
We start under canvas, a large tent kitted out with the "shabby chic" clutter – old sofas, chairs, tables, books, memorabilia, battered lamp shades and parlour games – that has become the Gobbledigook trademark from such shows as Easingwold On Our Turf's Alice In Wonderland last year.
A folk band of Gavin Brookes on fiddle, Tom Leiby on guitar and Jack Woods on mandolin are in serenading mode, brashly interrupted by Alexander Flanagan Wright's spiv-salesman Chief Weasel in a rare but welcome stage appearance by the Flanagan Collective director.
He is the Citizen Smith revolutionary of the piece, leading his striped-topped weasel army in their Toad Hall coup, bouncing brash, teasing, artful banter off children and adults alike in the promenading audience.
David Jarman's Badger in Gobbledigook Theatre Company's The Wind In The Willows. Picture: Tom Youster
Wright has free rein to improvise; elsewhere David Jarman's script evokes place, time and each principal character's philosophy on life with introductory speeches for Andrew Caley's Ratty and Cecily Nash's Moley as they take to the boat on the river, to the sound of babbling water.
Jarman's doomsday Badger brews up tea in his camouflaged set, with its old TV, radio and bric-a-brac from your antique grandparents' era, and here, there and everywhere rushes John Holt Roberts's poop-pooping Toad in a green suit, playing off the audience delightfully with his gift for off-the-cuff wit.
He is even more excitable than Chris Evans on Top Gear as he purloins a motor, in this case Sally the Morris Minor, to tear around the estate drives.
The constant moving hither and thither keeps us fitter than a Pokémon Go game as we join Toad in taking back his hall from Wright's Chief Weasel, by now conducting himself grandly in a Noel Coward silk dressing gown.
The wind in these willows is as freshening as outdoor theatre can be, so bolt over to Bolton Abbey...and make a note that Gobbledigook will return next summer with Robin Hood.
The Wind In The Willows, Gobbledigook Theatre, Bolton Abbey Estate, beyond Harrogate, until August 7, performances today until Sunday and next Wednesday to Sunday, 1.30pm and 6.30pm. Box office: boltonabbey.com
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