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Two years ago, Shakespeare’s Globe tried a bold experiment: recruit a gang of actors – many of them quite famous – to perform a one-off performance of Twelfth Night in an old school Elizabethan ‘cue script’ style.
What the hell is that, you reasonably ask. Well, back in Shakespeare’s day, actors didn’t all rehearse productions together for weeks on end, but rather learned their own lines and the lines before their lines and then got together and did the play on that basis alone.
Is that a recipe for terrible productions? It’s certainly a recipe for quick productions, and Twelfth Night went well enough that the Globe is doing it all again this year, with a take on the if anything even more beloved comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Its one and only performance will take place on Sunday September 14, and we can exclusively reveal the cast. The biggest name is Stephen Mangan, who played Malvolio in Twelfth Night and clearly had so much fun that he’s up for it again, this time playing classic comedy character Bottom, the overenthusiastic amateur actor. He’ll be joined by an excellent cast headed by Globe boss Michelle Terry as Hippolyta/Titania and her actor husband Paul ‘Kev from Motherland’ Ready as Theseus/Oberon.
Alongside them we have Paul Chahidi (Puck), Jolyon Coy (Snout/Moth), Alfred Enoch (Lysander), Sarah Finnegan (Prompt/Philostrate), Leah Harvey (Hermia/First Fairy), Ényi Okoronkwo (Flute/Peaseblossom), Tanya Reynolds (Helena), Jamie Wilkes (Snug/Cobweb), Jacoba Williams (Starveling/Mustardseed), Susan Wokoma (Quince/Egeus) and Zach Wyatt (Demetrius).
Will it be a total shambles? Hopefully not: top director Blanche McIntyre is in charge of keeping the show on the road and they’re all great actors who will have learned their lines. Will it be a bit of a shambles? Probably, but that’s surely part of the appeal (and the reason one of the cast is designated as a prompter) and the reason why they’re tackling one of Shakespeare’s funniest comedies rather than Othello or whatever.
The show has been sold out for some time without anyone actually knowing the cast, but the Globe has just put 80 tickets back on sale with the cast announcement.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: For One Night Only is at Shakespeare’s Globe, Sep 14. Buy tickets here.