A Midsummer Night's Dream & Beowulf - Poster, 1997
Title
A Midsummer Night's Dream & Beowulf - Poster, 1997
Date
14 April 1997
Description
Poster for English Shakespeare Company productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare and Michael Bogdanov's adaptation of Beowulf.
What's the story?
The English Shakespeare Company was set up in 1986 by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington to present and tour the works of William Shakespeare.
Director Bogdanov was dedicated to touring populist versions of Shakespeare. In his obituary in The Independent newspaper in April 2017, he is quoted as once saying:
“Basically, my theatre – when I am working with Shakespeare – is designed for people who have never been to the theatre before.”
The English Shakespeare Company’s most famous production was The Wars of the Roses, first presented in 1986 and featuring Shakespeare’s complete history cycle, namely Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, Henry V, Richard II, Henry VI and Richard III.
For this tour, ESC presented their version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch,
At an early performance at the New Theatre in Oxford in March 1997, the Financial Times wrote:
“The opening sound of A Midsummer Night's Dream is that of Sellotape being unrolled. Around a mile and a half of the stuff is employed during the subsequent three and a quarter hours, transforming a stage scattered with doorways and picture frames into a glittering, chaotic web such that Titania, for instance, becomes literally stuck on Bottom. Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch's idea is simple but brilliant, serving to create a visual motif for the otherworldly entanglements of the play as Julian Bleach's shaven-headed, leering Puck cuts sinister capers like an over-excited cousin of Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu; at one point he rides on the back of a stilted, quadruped fairy resembling something from a Salvador Dalí nightmare.”
This tour also presented Bogdanov’s adaptation for children of the epic poem, Beowulf.
Director Bogdanov was dedicated to touring populist versions of Shakespeare. In his obituary in The Independent newspaper in April 2017, he is quoted as once saying:
“Basically, my theatre – when I am working with Shakespeare – is designed for people who have never been to the theatre before.”
The English Shakespeare Company’s most famous production was The Wars of the Roses, first presented in 1986 and featuring Shakespeare’s complete history cycle, namely Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, Henry V, Richard II, Henry VI and Richard III.
For this tour, ESC presented their version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch,
At an early performance at the New Theatre in Oxford in March 1997, the Financial Times wrote:
“The opening sound of A Midsummer Night's Dream is that of Sellotape being unrolled. Around a mile and a half of the stuff is employed during the subsequent three and a quarter hours, transforming a stage scattered with doorways and picture frames into a glittering, chaotic web such that Titania, for instance, becomes literally stuck on Bottom. Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch's idea is simple but brilliant, serving to create a visual motif for the otherworldly entanglements of the play as Julian Bleach's shaven-headed, leering Puck cuts sinister capers like an over-excited cousin of Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu; at one point he rides on the back of a stilted, quadruped fairy resembling something from a Salvador Dalí nightmare.”
This tour also presented Bogdanov’s adaptation for children of the epic poem, Beowulf.
Type
Poster
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Researcher: David Longford
