THEATRICAL heavyweight Simon Callow will bring a one-man show to the Liverpool Playhouse as a highlight of the theatre’s spring/summer season.

The actor, writer and director, who starred in Four Weddings and a Funeral, has joined forces with eminent Shakespeare biographer Jonathan Bate to create and to perform The Man From Stratford.

Following the worldwide success of his The Mystery of Charles Dickens, the piece brings to life both the Bard and the characters best known for performing his work.

Man About the House actress Paula Wilcox will also appear at the Everyman as part of the run-up to the Hope Street venue’s closure and remodelling.

She will appear in Canary, a newly commissioned play by Gimme Gimme Gimme writer Jonathan Harvey, about love and sexuality set against the changing backdrop of modern Britain from the 1960s to the present day.

Gemma Bodinetz, Everyman and Playhouse artistic director, said the new season announcement comes at one of the most exciting periods in British theatre she has experienced.

She said: “We are living in the most exciting theatrical times with experimental companies who don’t just simply say, ‘you are the audience, here’s the play’.

“As our reputation grows, so does the desire of other theatres to work with us and for our work to be shown beyond Liverpool.

“This attracts actors of the highest note to work with us because they like their work to be seen in London and the West End.”

The Everyman and Playhouse’s spring/summer season will also include a new version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, based on the novel by Liverpool writer Robert Tressell, which has been considered a classic of British working class literature since its publication in 1914.

Theatre company 20 Stories High will bring Ghost Boy, an energetic piece performed by a range of artists from dancers, puppeteers, live musicians and actors, to the Everyman in April.