A theatre producer who has brought the Elizabethan era to York City Centre and Blenheim Palace has discovered that he is related to the man who published Shakespeare's First Folio.

James Cundall MBE, the founder of the new Shakespeare's Rose Theatre is staging four of the poet's plays in the grounds of the Oxfordshire country home and near the 13th Century Clifford’s Tower, York this Summer.

But until he bumped into a distant relative in America, the Yorkshireman had no idea that he had an even stronger link to Shakespeare.

Cundall, 62, learned he was a direct descendant of the actor Henry Condell, one of two men responsible for publishing the first ever collection of Shakespeare's work in 1623.

The First Folio was collated and finally released seven years after Shakespeare’s death.

“It really is a wonderful thing to be able to lay claim to, and a fantastic anecdote,” Cundall, Chief Executive of Lunchbox Productions and founder of Shakespeare's Rose Theatre said.

He said he discovered the link by accident when talking to a man that shared his surname in California.

The theatre producer added: “[The man] explained that the Cundalls in all probability have a very important ancestor in common, one of two men who published the First Folio. I did some research of my own and it all seemed to add up.”