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A Midsummer Night's Dream

Overview of the production

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is now available to stream on NT at Home. To watch, you can either subscribe to NT at Home, or simply rent the production

The theatre becomes the forest – a dream world of flying fairies, contagious fogs and moonlight revels. The seating is wrapped around the action while the immersive tickets allow the story to be followed on foot.

Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Oliver Chris (Green Wing), David Moorst (Allelujah!) and Hammed Animashaun (The Festival) lead the cast as Titania, Oberon, Puck and Bottom. The production also re-unites the team responsible for last year’s smash-hit Julius Caesar. Direction is by Nicholas Hytner, design by Bunny Christie, costume by Christina Cunningham, lighting by Bruno Poet and sound by Paul Arditti. Joining the team will be composer Grant Olding, movement director Arlene Phillips, and associate movement director James Cousins.

"This is the most accomplished Shakespeare production of [Nicholas Hytner's] I’ve ever encountered"

The Daily Telegraph ★★★★★

"Could be the most joyously affirmative Shakespeare production I’ve ever seen"

The Metro ★★★★★

"A warm, exuberant celebration of the transforming power of love."

Financial Times ★★★★

"Five stars might not be enough"

Observer ★★★★★

Length
Approx 2hr 20min

Awards

Hammed Animashaun

  • WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play
  • Critics Circle Award for Best Shakespearean Performance
  • Ian Charleson Award (nomination)

Bunny Christie

  • Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Design

Isis Hainsworth

  • Ian Charleson Award (nomination)

Kit Young

  • Ian Charleson Award (nomination)

Mousetrap Award for Best Play 2020

 

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Additional content

From the programme

Hammed Animashaun as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Bottom's Dream

Peter Holland

In 1661, over 60 years after the first performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom finally became its star when a cut-down version of Shakespeare’s play was published, renamed as The Merry Conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver…

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Hippolyta and the Amazons

Edith Hall

At a crucial moment in the final play of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Athena explains how the rocky ‘Hill of Ares’ or ‘Areopagus’ in central Athens, which rivals her own Acropolis in size, received its name. A terrifying tribe of warlike Amazons…

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Thou Art Translated

Ayanna Thompson

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that is deeply invested in exploring what happens when situations, locations, people, plots, and objects change, move, migrate, or to use the play’s own terminology “translate”. Does moving from…

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Top

Cast

Paul Adeyefa
Demetrius

Paul Adeyefa

Theatre includes The Dark Room at Theatre 503; Henry VI at Union Theatre; The Window at the Hope; and Blank Pages Result at The Pleasance.

Television includes Bancroft II, The Bay, A Scottish Soldier (title role), Good Omens, Ransom, DCI Banks and Cucumber.

Film Chubby Funny.

June 2019

Hammed Animashaun
Bottom

Hammed Animashaun

Theatre includes Dear Elizabeth at the Gate; The Producers at Manchester Royal Exchange; A Monster Calls at Bristol Old Vic and the Old Vic London; Barber Shop Chronicles, Amadeus, The Threepenny Opera and seven new plays at the NT Studio for the National Theatre; The Importance of Being Earnest (also Latitude), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bugsy Malone, Secret Theatre and three pantomimes at the Lyric Hammersmith; Measure for Measure at the Young Vic; La Haine for Teunkie van der Sluijs at the Barbican; Heroes and Married to the Game at Theatre 503; and Mogadishu on national tour for Royal Exchange Manchester and Lyric Hammersmith.

Television includes PLS LIKE, Breeders, Furious Andrew, Black Mirror, Kuos, Edge of Heaven, Wizard Sleeve, Deadbeats and The Mimic.

Film How to Build a Girl, The Festival, The Ellington Kid, Twenty8K, Borrowed Time and Tooting Broadway.

June 2019

Charlotte Atkinson
Moth

Charlotte Atkinson

Training Melton College of Performing Arts and New York Film Academy.

Theatre The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at Leicester Haymarket.

Television Neverland, Doctors, The Durrells, Truckers and The Tunnel, Live at the Electric 

Film Leopard, Anchor and Hope, Why Hide? and The Girl from the Song.

June 2019

Tessa Bonham Jones
Helena

Tessa Bonham Jones

Training Drama Centre London.

Theatre includes In Praise of Folly and The Will for Foppish Theatre company.

Television The Trial of Christine Keeler.

Film Wonder Woman 1984 and Justice League.

June 2019

Adam Cunis
Understudy

Adam Cunis

Theatre includes Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice storytelling at Shakespeare’s Globe; The Woman in the Moon and Macbeth storytelling at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse; Macbeth 360 at the Cockpit; The Seagull at Hemar Theatre; and Just Like Me at Southwark Playhouse.

June 2019

Oliver Chris
Oberon / Theseus

Oliver Chris

Theatre includes Young Marx at The Bridge; Twelfth Night, Great Britain, One Man, Two Guvnors (also West End and Broadway) and Season’s Greetings at the National Theatre; King Charles III at the Almeida (also West End and Broadway); Rain Man on UK tour; Women, Power and Politics at the Tricycle; Cyrano de Bergerac at the Royal Exchange Manchester; The Taming of the Shrew at Wilton’s Music Hall; and The Importance of Being Earnest at Theatre Royal Northampton.

Television includes Four Weddings, The Queen and I, Endeavour, Motherland, King Charles III, The Musketeers, The Scandalous Lady W, Bluestone 42, Breathless, Phineas and Ferb, Silent Witness, FM, Hotel Babylon, Fairy Tales, Bonkers, Tripping Over, Sharpe’s Challenge, Green Wing, The IT Crowd, According to Bex, Nathan Barley, Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster, Sweet Medicine, Casualty, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Real Jane Austen, Rescue Me, The Office and Lorna Doone.

Film includes Emma, The Voyage of Dr Doolittle, Exit Eve, The Little Stranger, Night of the Lotus, Huge, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and The Gathering.

June 2019

Gwendoline Christie
Titania / Hippolyta

Gwendoline Christie

Theatre includes Dr Faustus and Mirandolina at Manchester Royal Exchange; Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the West End; Restoration at Salisbury Playhouse; Skin Deep for Opera North; Gilgamesh at the National Theatre Studio; Cymbeline for Cheek by Jowl; Pravda at Chichester Festival Theatre; and Great Expectations for the RSC.

Television includes Top of the Lake, Game of Thrones (as Brienne of Tarth), The Friend and The Personal History of David Copperfield. 

Film includes Women of Marwen, In Fabric, Darkest Minds, Star Wars Episodes VII and VIII, Absolutely Fabulous The Movie, Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Parts 1 & 2, Ourhouse and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

June 2019

Jermaine Freeman
Flute

Jermaine Freeman

Training Intermission Youth Theatre.

Theatre includes Guilt Trip for Intermission; Loose Lips for Big House; and Voices in the Dark Sonnet 130 at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Film Crazy in Faith.

Television includes Enoch Powell: 50 Years Later.

June 2019

Isis Hainsworth
Hermia

Isis Hainsworth

Theatre includes Moonlight / Nightschool (Harold Pinter Season) and Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour in the West End; and What Now for Strange Town at the Traverse, Edinburgh.

Television includes One of Us, In Plain Sight, The Panopticon, Anna is a Slut, Wanderlust, The Victim and Harlots.

June 2019

Chipo Kureya
Peaseblossom

Chipo Kureya

Theatre includes The Jungle Book for Fiery Angel; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End; Elephant, Penguin, Elephant for Goblin; title role in Rapunzel for tutti-frutti; The Tempest for Waterloo East; So What If I Dance for Dragon Literature; Finger Tips for Clean Break; Liberian Girl at the Royal Court; and Thoroughly Modern Millie for Small Dark Woodland Creature.

Opera includes Katya Kabanova at the Royal Opera House and The Skating Rink for Garsington Opera.

Short films Tales from the Big Smoke and Yellow Fever.

June 2019

Francis Lovehall
Starveling

Francis Lovehall

Training Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Theatre includes Lord of the Flies for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures.

June 2019

Kevin McMonagle
Egeus

Kevin McMonagle

Theatre includes Mother Courage and Her Children at the Royal Exchange; The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Park; People, Places and Things at the National Theatre, in the West End and for Headlong at St Ann’s Warehouse, NY; Junkyard for Headlong; The Tempest at the Printroom; The Divided Laing and Pieces of Vincent at the Arcola; Family Reunion at the Donmar Warehouse; Ladybird, Thyestes and Ambulance at the Royal Court; Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors and Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Black Snow and Further than the Furthest Thing at the National Theatre; Ghosts, Waiting for Godot, The Plough and the Stars and Thérèse Raquin at Glasgow Citizens; Hamlet and Broken Glass at West Yorkshire Playhouse; No Nothing at the Lemon Tree; A Doll’s House for National Theatre of Scotland; Russian National Mail for Sputnik; and Fall at the Traverse Edinburgh.

Television includes New Tricks, Krakatoa – The Last Days, Quite Ugly One Morning, The Long Roads, Rose and Maloney, Rebus, Morse, Blue Murder and Bramwell.

June 2019

Ami Metcalf
Snout

Ami Metcalf

Theatre includes Lady Windermere’s Fan in the West End and The Wind in the Willows at Regent’s Park.

Television includes Father Brown, Silent Witness, The Mimic, Catherine Tate, Call the Midwife, Walking and Taking (series lead, as Kathy Burke), Upstairs Downstairs, Panto, The Kevin Eldon Show, Bad Education, One Night, Little Crackers and Doctors.

Film includes Crawl, Allied and Pan.

Radio includes Home Front (as Kitty), The Interrogation and Listening to the Dead.

June 2019

Jamie-Rose Monk
Snug

Jamie-Rose Monk

Training Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

Theatre includes The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Park; Lysistrata at the Almeida; Yap Yap Yap at the Royal Festival Hall; Fat – A One-Woman Show at Hackney Show Rooms; The Poisoner’s Pact for Stuff of Dreams; King Lear for Without Walls; Monologue Slam Winner’s Edition at Theatre Royal Stratford East; Positive for West Avenue Theatre Company/Edinburgh Fringe; Besame Mucho at Charing Cross Theatre; and Brown Buttery Monk at Leicester Square Theatre.

Television includes Holby City; Class Dismissed (series regular, series 1–3); and Gameface.

Film includes Holmes & Watson.

Radi0 includes Sketchtopia.

June 2019

Felicity Montagu
Quince

Felicity Montagu

Theatre includes Pride and Prejudice at Regent’s Park; Matchbox Theatre at Hampstead; Quartermaine’s Terms in the West End; Unsuitable for Adults at the Bush; Macbeth at the Nuffield, Southampton; Susan’s Breasts at the Royal Court; Are You Sitting Comfortably at the Palace Watford; Up on the Roof at the Donmar Warehouse; The Shaughraun and Angels in America at the National Theatre; and The Knocky at the Royal Court Upstairs.

Television includes Death on the Tyne, Sally4Ever, This Time with Alan Partridge, Chinese Burn, The End of the F***ing World, Hank Zipzer, Brief Encounter, The Durrells, The Boy in the Dress, Mapp and Lucia, Doc Martin, Stage Door Johnnies, Little Cracker Baby, Be Blonde, Chickens, Rab C Nesbitt, Lead Balloon, Skins, Outnumbered, Off the Hook, M.I. High, Johnny and the Bomb, Suburban Shootout, My Life as a Popat, My Family, Nighty Night, Hear the Silence, The Eustace Brothers AKA Paradise Heights II, Crouch, I’m Alan Partridge, Coming Through, Ffizz, This is David Lander, Tumbledown, Wish Me Luck, Harry Enfield Television Show, Josie, Adoption – The Mother, Paul Merton The Series, 2.4 Children, The Alexei Sayle Show, Peak Practice, A Touch of Frost, Health & Efficiency, Smith & Jones, Six Sides of Coogan, Holding the Baby, Knowing Me Knowing You: The Alan Partridge Show, Trust, All Along the Watchtower, The Mrs Bradley Mysteries, City Central, Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible, Mr Charity, Vanity Fair and Butterfly.

Film includes Husk, Hank Zipzer’s Christmas Catastrophe, Dad’s Army, Alan Partridge – The Movie, I Want Candy, Confetti, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Blackball.

June 2019

David Moorst
Puck / Philostrate

David Moorst

Training LAMDA.

Theatre includes Allelujah! at The Bridge; Shopping and Fucking at the Lyric Hammersmith; First Light at Chichester; Into the Woods at the Royal Exchange Manchester; Violence & Son at the Royal Court; and Wonderland at Hampstead.

Television includes Grantchester, Partners in Crime and Holby.

Film includes Waiting for the Barbarians and Peterloo.

Awards Emerging Talent Award at Evening Standard Awards 2015 and Most Promising Newcomer at Critics’ Circle Awards 2016.

June 2019

Lennin Nelson-McClure
Mustardseed

Lennin Nelson-McClure

Training National Centre for Circus Arts, Belfast Metropolitan College.

Theatre includes Elfish on the Shelf for Young at Art; Pink Bucket III: Of Spirit at Queer Art Festival; Wake the Giant for Lumière; Even the Stones and Impulse for Ockham’s Razor; The Spectacular Aladdin for M&J at SSE Arena, Belfast; Evita on UK tour; and Hunchback the Musical for PB Musicals at Theatre at the Mill.

June 2019

Philippa Quinn
Understudy

Philippa Quinn

Theatre includes Square Rounds (as Fritz Faber) and Just to Get Married at the Finborough; Control in the West End; Because We Want To at the Rose Playhouse; and Bard on Board and Pride and Prejudice on international tour.

Short film Dark Matter.

June 2019

Rachel Tolzman
Bedbug

Rachel Tolzman

Training Boston Conservatory; University of Colorado; Ithaca College.

Pole competitions Places at Pole Art Italy, Florence 2019; IPAAT Nottingham (1st place, 2016; 2nd place, Champions, 2019); Pole Art UK, Sheffield (1st Place, 2018); World Pole Championships, Tianjin, China (3rd Place); Miss Pole Dance UK, Crawley (1st place, 2017); and Pole Sport Organisation, Zürich (2nd Place).

Opera includes Don Giovanni at Hampstead Garden Opera; A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Opera in the City; and Trade, Transformations, Don Giovanni and L’Enfant et les sortilèges at Boston Conservatory.

June 2019

Jay Webb
Cobweb

Jay Webb

Theatre includes Wendy and Peter Pan for the RSC; Eurobeat Moldova at the Edinburgh Festival; The Producers on UK tour; The Wind in the Willows, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Boy Meets Boy, Rent, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (also UK tour), and Oliver! in the West End; Cabaret, West Side Story and Cats on UK tour; and international tours of On Your Toes and Grease.

Film & television include A Christmas Carol, Princess in Love and The Perfectionist.

Radio includes Peter Pan, The Constant Nymph and King Street Juniors.

June 2019

Kit Young
Lysander

Kit Young

Theatre includes Julius Caesar at The Bridge; Macbeth at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar Warehouse; The Real Thing at Theatre Royal, Bath; and The Extraordinary Cabaret of Dorian Grey (as Dorian) at the Underbelly.

Television Endeavour.

Short film The Devil’s Harmony.

June 2019

Creative Team

Writer

William Shakespeare

Director

Nicholas Hytner

Production Design

Bunny Christie

Costume Design

Christina Cunningham

Theatre includes Alys, Always and Julius Caesar at The Bridge; Chess for ENO; Grief is the Thing With Feathers for Black Box and O’Reilly, Ireland, The Barbican and St Ann’s Warehouse, NY; A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer (Complicité), People, Places and Things and As You Like It for the National Theatre; The Kid Stays in the Picture and The Nether for the Royal Court; Chimerica for the Almeida (also West End); The Master and Margarita, A Disappearing Number, Shun-kin, Measure for Measure, A Minute Too Late, Pet Shop Boys Meet Eisenstein, Strange Poetry, The Elephant Vanishes, The Noise of Time, Light and Mnemonic, all for Complicité at the Barbican, National, Almeida and Duchess, and tours in the UK, Europe, the USA and Japan; and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui for National Actors’ Theatre, New York.

Opera includes The Rake’s Progress for Aix en Provence Festival, Dutch National Opera; The Snow Maiden and Hansel & Gretel for Opéra North; Tristan and Isolde for ENO; Benjamin dernier nuit (world premiere) for Opéra National de Lyon; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Importance of Being Earnest for the Royal Opera House; A Dog’s Heart for Dutch National Opera, ENO, La Scala, Milan and Lyon Opera; and Nabucco for Nancy Opéra and Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier.

Dance includes Ballet Spiegelungen Verweile Doch (world premiere) for Saarländisches Staatstheater; In Absentia at Sadler’s Wells; Sun for Hofesh Schechter Company at Sadler’s Wells and international tours; and Just for Show for DV8 at the National Theatre and international tours.

June 2019

Lighting Design

Bruno Poet

Sound Design

Paul Arditti

Composer

Grant Olding

Theatre includes, at The Bridge, A Christmas Carol, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Two Ladies, Alys, Always and Young Marx. At Chichester The Country Wife, Canvas, and Wallenstein. For the RSC at Stratford and in the West End: Don Quixote, The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, The Hypocrite, The Rover, and Oppenheimer. At the National Theatre: Saint George and The Dragon, A Small Family Business, Great Britain (also West End), Timon of Athens, One Man, Two Guvnors (also West End, Broadway and international tour; Tony Award nominee and winner of Drama Desk Award for Best Score), Travelling LightEngland People Very Nice, The Man of ModeThe Alchemist and Southwark Fair. Also work for Leicester Curve, Sheffield Crucible, Birmingham Rep, the New Vic, Stoke, the Mercury Colchester, Birmingham Stage, West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Watermill Newbury, Royal & Derngate Northampton, and for Changeling Theatre. In London: Bartholomew Fair, Broken Glass for the Tricycle (also West End).

Musicals include Drunk for Leicester Curve and Bridewell; Tracy Beaker Gets Real for Nottingham Playhouse and UK tour; Simply Cinderella for Leicester Curve; The Beggars Musical for Changeling and tour; Spittin’ Distance for Stephen Joseph and National Theatre Studio; and Three Sides for the Bridewell, Finborough and 45th Street Theatre, NY.

Dance includes Merlin for Northern Ballet and Jekyll & Hyde at the Old Vic.

Film & television include Moley, The North Water, Digging for Britain, A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, Saving Santa, Upstart Crow, The Pact, I Want My Wife Back, Marley’s GhostsThe Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, Monsters Behind the Iron Curtain, Arena: National Theatre On Stage and Theatreland.

November 2021

Movement Director

Arlene Phillips

Associate Movement Director

James Cousins

Wigs, SFX, Hair & Make-up

Susanna Peretz

Theatre includes Noises Off at the Garrick Theatre; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Very Very Very Dark Matter and Julius Caesar at The Bridge; Hedda Tesman and Plenty at Chichester; Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic; Ghost Stories at the Lyric Hammersmith; Peter Pan at Regent’s Park; The Last Ship on UK tour; Pity, Prudes, Gun Dog, Girls and Boys, Road, How To Hold Your Breath, Linda, Birdland, The Nether, The Kid Stays In The Picture, Anatomy of a Suicide, The Twits, X and Hangmen (also West End) at the Royal Court; Don Juan in Soho and The Exorcist in the West End; Machinal, The Game, Mr Burns, Medea, The Treatment, Carmen Disruption, Mary Stuart (also West End), Oresteia (also Trafalgar Studios) and Hamlet (also West End) at the Almeida; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Old Vic; The Grinning Man at Bristol Old Vic/Trafalgar Studios; Wings at the Young Vic; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in the West End; The Humans at BAM, NY; Bugsy Malone, Tipping the Velvet, City of Glass and Jubilee at the Lyric Hammersmith; The Way of the World, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Teddy Ferrara at the Donmar Warehouse; and Witness for the Prosecution at London Court House.

Opera includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Aldeburgh Festival; Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, Dark Mirror and Curlew River at the Barbican/US tour; The Illuminated Heart at Lincoln Centre NY; Greek for Scottish Opera/Festival Theatre, Edinburgh; and Rigoletto on Irish tour.

Film & TV includes The Show, Electric Dreams, In The Dark Half, His Heavy Heart, Jimmy’s End, Showpieces and Skeletons (BAFTA Nominee and Michael Powell Award-winner).

Other work includes collaborations with Alan Moore on his comic book series Providence and the multimedia project As Big As the Sky with artist Ai Weiwei. Her work has also been exhibited at Sprueth Magers Art Gallery.

November 2019

Fight director

Kate Waters

Theatre includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Marx and Julius Caesar at The Bridge; The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida; Small Island, Salome, The Plough and the Stars, Othello, As You Like It, Our Country’s Good, Rules For Living, Hotel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also West End), The Comedy of Errors, One Man, Two Guvnors (also West End, Broadway & world tour), Frankenstein, Season’s Greetings, Hamlet, Women Beware Women and War Horse (also West End) for the National Theatre.

Other stage work includes Venice PreservedRomeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Two Noble Kinsmen, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Love’s Sacrifice and Dr Faustus for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Get Up Stand Up, The Windsors: Endgame, SweatThe Lieutenant of Innishmore, Tina – The Musical, King Lear, Noises Off, Hand to God and From Here to Eternity in the West End; King Lear and Black Comedy at Chichester Festival Theatre; The Last Goodbye at The Old Globe, San Diego, California; Cyrano de Bergerac, The Maids, Macbeth, Richard IIIEast Is East, The Ruling Class, The Hothouse, and The Pride for Jamie Lloyd Company; The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, Dr Faustus and Henry V at Shakespeare’s Globe; Liberian Girl at the Royal Court; Urinetown The Musical at St James Theatre and West End; Don Giovanni at the ROH; Henry IV and Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse and St Ann’s Warehouse NYC; Noises Off (and West End); The Duchess of Malfi and Sweet Bird of Youth at the Old Vic; Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Peter Pan, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, A Midsummer Night’s DreamPorgy and Bess and Lord of the Flies at Regent’s Park; Disgraced at the Bush; Bugsy Malone, Saved, Blasted and Herons at the Lyric, Hammersmith; and many productions for major regional theatres.

Television includes My Policeman and regular fight direction on Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks. She also choreographed the fights for Coronation Street Live 2015.

November 2021