Touring outdoor productions of Shakespeare’s classics are part of British summertime and as much a social gathering as a theatre event. East London Shakespeare Festival‘s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is currently touring across London, extending out to Kent for the first time. The company, founded by Walthamstow-based actors and producers Rosie Ward and Ursula Early, brings a signature East London vibe of contemporary urban Shakespeare to Broadstairs Bandstand, with the audience gathered in this accessible space by the sea to enjoy a free performance funded by Broadstairs and St Peter’s Town Council. It’s quite a magical setting for a first-time experience or as a regular fan.
The set is well-travelled and solid for outdoor festival touring, offering levels, costume anchors, bowers or location backdrops. Jamie Wheeler‘s costume design delivers reconstructed garments that are fun, cleverly stylish and a visual treat. The three plotlines are given distinct looks with careful thought around quick change and multi-roleplaying. Court characters get a tailored catwalk and recycled-tie theme, then there’s neon festival chill faeries, and reimagined ‘Athens Wood Trust’ hi-vis jackets for the Mechanicals. Bottom’s costume for Pyramus and Thisbe is a showstopper.
A seven-strong ensemble bursting with talent brings a dynamic, bright and chaotic two hours of theatre, working tirelessly together with the pace never dropping. It feels a rare treat to experience actors flexing their craft using projection and articulation with no amplification, balanced with a physicalised delivery of poetry and prose, to great effect. With an inclusion of a 2026 apprentice actor plus a community chorus, this ELSF cast smashes it out of the forest.
For multi-role playing, the doubling of Hippolyta/Titania (Early) and Theseus/Oberon (Jack Bence) is expected, and director Rosie Frecker successfully ups this dynamic by also using the same actors to play Puck and Bottom. Puck is a DJ, a festival reveller with an unrequited love for Oberon, her boss. This nicely counteracts the mutual physical attraction between the faerie King and Queen, nuanced further by Titania’s infatuation with Bottom and her sexual capture of him by royal force of magic. This device works well and is particularly effective when Early has onstage choreographed costume changes to morph from Puck to Titania and back again. As Bottom, irrepressible Bence infectiously brings his finest David Brent of ‘Athens Wood Trust’ and has the time of his life. Further Mechanicals throw many accents into the wind whilst playing innuendo-boho Faeries and well-cast Lovers.
Sonum Batra‘s musical direction ensures signature high-energy musical numbers, gorgeously tight harmonies, and upbeat and contemporary festival-style tunes using live guitar. Choreography (Genevieve Dunne) and staged movement are fun and expertly integrated throughout. The set piece quarrel in the wood between Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius is energetically enacted around the audience as a physical tour de force of frantically paced farce. The rhyming couplets are still delivered by the quartet with clarity, and the verbal sparring of Hermia (Kalifa Taylor) and Helena (Annabelle Blake) is perfectly pitched for a younger adult audience.
Amidst the upbeat, we hear Titania’s powerful, poetic speech about the broken harmony of altered seasons, giving particular resonance as we sit in one hot summer of modern climate change and extreme weather. Landing the blame on her petty arguments with Oberon puts Shakespeare in line with our contemporary views on the direct outcomes of human actions.
This production knows how to work its audiences without shortchanging them on imagination. If you want an enjoyable blast of well-orchestrated mayhem, then check out the remainder of the tour. I loved the ELSF vibe and hope the revels can return to Kent next year.
Director: Rosie Frecker
Designer: Jamie Wheeler
Musical Director: Sonum Batra
Movement Director: Genevieve Dunne
Set Construction & Production Management: Andrew Hollingworth
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is touring venues in London and Kent until Monday 24 August.
