Now all the world will be my stage

He says: "I'll probably mount the odd show here and there for the ex-pat community - once a showman always a showman."

Yet, whatever exotic stages Simon finds along the way, one location much closer to home will always be associated with him.

Simon, whose home is in Thorpe Bay, is one of two key figures behind the development of a delightful, eccentric local tradition - the Battlesbridge summer shows.

Started in 2001, these have burgeoned into an annual tradition, a sort of high summer answer to the Christmas pantomime.

The chosen plays tend to be beloved English classics, usually with an outdoor tinge and plenty of excuse for vigorous action and elaborate props.

The backlist includes three evergreens of the English countryside, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lark Rise to Candleford and Wind in the Willows, as well as Treasure Island and - relatively sedate by Battlesbridge standards - the Importance of Being Earnest. This year's offering was We'll Gather Lilacs, a musical treat comprising a medley of Ivor Novello songs. The unique key to Battlesbridge-style theatricals is the way they turn the setting into an outdoor stage, complete with giant props. The river with its watermill, lock, mill-race, mill-pond, and surrounding water meadows have all played active roles as scenery.

The bar area is a gipsy caravan. Latterly, a hay barn has been converted into a theatre, complete with a raised mezzanine seating area and a permanent lighting rig. But it is still visibly a barn.

Bats have been know to flit in and out of productions. The seating consists largely of hay bales and this is probably the only theatre in Essex where the audience's dogs are made welcome on an equal footing with their owners.

Roy Hart, the man who originally turned Battlesbridge into one big rural theatre, says simply: "We've created something magical." Anybody who has sat through a summer night's show on the banks of the Crouch will agree. The tradition will continue without Simon Richards at the helm.

But the departure of the first Battlesbridge producer, for the Mexican desert, offered the chance for a retrospective.

The Battlesbridge plays have moved so fast from experiment to local legend that nobody, until now, has had much chance to take stock of the achievement.

So Simon returned one last time to the riverside stage and did some reminiscing. Simon, who trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, was involved in a range of theatre projects in the Southend area when he was recruited for the first Battlesbridge production - almost despite himself.

"My time as a jobbing actor and teacher ended on my 40th birthday," he recalls. "My partner asked me what I wanted as a present and I said, To give up work'."

Wish granted, Simon set about doing his own thing.

"It essentially involved using theatre to help talented young people," he says.

"I was very happy doing what I was doing, so I wasn't all that enthusiastic to begin with when Roy Hart contacted me. But Roy doesn't take no for an answer.

"Since then, I've always dreaded the ring of the phone each year and Roy's voice on the other end. But I've always gone along with it."

Roy Hart, founder of the Skeetex business empire, has established a unique position in Battlesbridge, something akin to an old-time country squire.

The lawns, lakes, riverside and outbuildings that provide the theatrical settings are all part of his property. The swashbuckling Roy is a born showman himself and it was only natural he should come to view his home village as a sort of arena or ampitheatre.

"I'm not too keen on being on stage myself," Roy says. "I prefer to be behind the scenes. That's why I wanted to get a professional like Simon in to actually produce the show."

Simon has selected the cast, staged the shows, and usually played a role himself.

"I choose the cast from people who are right for the role, of course," he says. "But they also have to fit in to the unique spirit of Battlesbridge.

"They have to be able to rise to the occasion and deliver in this rather unconventional set-up."

Acting is Simon's prime concern.Yet, as he looks back down the years, it is the props and stage tricks that loom largest in his memory."

"For Treasure Island, we obviously needed to have something to act as the pirate ship," he says. "Roy, being Roy, knew someone who owned a working replica."

The ship was hauled to Battlesbridge and floated on the fishing lake. Roy also brought in two working cannon for the show. "Unfortunately he primed them with too much gunpowder and they blew up," says Simon. "We all had to take cover."

Other vehicles roped in as performers have included the gipsy caravan, used as Toad's travelling home in Wind in the Willows, and a vintage car.

"Roy went out and bought a vintage automobile just to put it in the show but its part was then cut," Simon says. "He was most put out."

Of all the elaborate stage effects, the one recalled most vividly by both Simon and Roy took place during the run of Wind in the Willows.

"Ratty's boat came across the river, then it mounted the bank and continued to skim through the lawn as if was still in water," Simon remembers. The effect was achieved by ropes, but they were invisible to the audience.

"We allowed the grass to grow a bit to hide the ropes," says Simon. "Nobody ever worked out how it was done, but the effect was undeniably magical."

A critical element in the Battlesbridge tradition has been the role of the audience.

"The audience here is unique," says Simon. "They are never just passive. If it rains in the middle of the show and we need to move indoors, they turn into stage hands and help to get the props and costumes inside.

Briefly donning his crisis manager's hat, Simon says: "One thing I won't miss about the productions is the English weather."

Yet the audience's response to foul weather is part and parcel of the Battlesbridge legend and it was there from the outset.

The first encounter with sabotage by English climate came when the skies opened up in the middle of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The actor playing Puck asked the audience: "Do you want us to stop?"

Simon remembers: "The answer from the audience was like a co-ordinated chorus. No! No! No! The rain was bucketing down, but not one person budged."

Anyone mounting an outdoor show in the English countryside is playing a game of roulette, and weather has seldom been on the side of Batttlesbridge. Yet for all the air of rural quaintness, the Battlesbridge plays are run by professionals and the show has always gone on.

It probably says something about the achievement of Simon Richards and Roy Hart that, whatever the weather records say, audiences always seem to recall the Battlesbridge productions as bathed in sunshine.