Rowde actor Jules Hobbs and her business partner Richard Curnow aim to raise their profiles when they take part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time.

The pair, pictured right, have been professional actors for a combined total of 60 years but have never performed at the festival.

They will be taking two of their Bard Heads shows to the festival.

They established Finding The Will theatre company in 2007 and perform their plays on the rural touring circuit and in schools.

Based upon six of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, the Bard Heads collection comprises six one actor shows written and performed by Miss Hobbs and Mr Curnow, who is based in Ross-on-Wye.

They do use some of Shakespeare’s original language but concentrate on giving the story and characters a new lease of life.

Miss Hobbs will be performing The Queen’s Speech based on Miranda from The Tempest and what happened to her 35 years after she left Prospero’s island while Mr Curnow is performing Dog, Book and Scandal, which one year after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet’s Friar Lawrence questions his faith and the part he played in their starcrossed tragedy.

Both shows have been seen locally in the past year, with performances in Trowbridge, Corsham and Bath.

Miss Hobbs said: “The idea of going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is not to make money but to get reviews nationally. We do what we do to spread the word that Shakespeare is not boring.”

At Edinburgh the plays are being performed in conjunction with the Everyman Theare, Cheltenham, and run daily from August 1-16 at the Gryphon@WestEnd.