A Midsummer Nights Dream (Bath)

[David J]

I'm kinda excited to see this

Phil Jupitas as Bottom. Meh. Could go either way

But this has Katy Stephens (Titania), Darrel D'Silva (Oberon) and Forbes Mason (Quince) working together again. I kinda prefer to see Forbes as an older puck, which this production appears to have (Simon Gregor)

There's also Eve Ponsonby and William postlethwaite as Hermia and Lysander

[Jan]

Strong cast apart from Jupitus. Quince isn't much of a part for Forbes Masson who I rate very highly. Interested to hear how Jupitus does, most of the best performances as Bottom I've seen were from heavy duty "straight" actors, it is a part Patrick Stewart has said he wants to play which could work well.

[David J]

It's pretty clear that Laurence Bowell is influenced by the famous Peter Brook production

Infact the blank white box set with doors and hanging platforms are lifted from that and updated in this less experimental version. The twist is that the production starts off with the white set for the Athens scenes, and then changes into a larger version for the forest scene. Except it's now black with white streaks of paint covering it

Bottoms ass' head is practically the same

The production does go on a bit, lots of pauses throughout

[Jan]

In the recent Trevor Nunn production the asses head was a horse's skeleton skull which put a bit of a black magic spin on it.

Richard Griffith was a famous Bottom who played him uniquely as a very quiet man with delicate gestures.