Rough Magyck

Synopsis: Video recording of Forkbeard Fantasy’s Rough Magyck. Part outdoor, part indoor, Rough Magyck goes in search of the of the supernatural in Shakespeare mixing mechanical sets, film and cartoon, outlandish characters and puppetry. Entering the foyer of the theatre, the audience is given a box with a range of ‘souvenirs’ inside (including fairy liquid and a complimentary peanut) and is conducted on a theatre tour by either Hamlet Holidays or Arden Forest Dream Tours. The backstory centres on the current renovation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, telling (on a large video screen in the foyer) how builders had broken into a network of tunnels beneath the theatre that dated back to Tudor times. Inside the tunnels, something had been disturbed which was now sending mystical energy up into the auditorium. Two documentary presenters, the Brittonioni Brothers, are making a film about Shakespeare’s supernatural. The audience is then escorted into the venue, to see workmen digging in the auditorium and awakening a mysterious hoofed figure beneath the theatre. The tour operators are shown to be ‘Ron’ and ‘Tania’, two fairies, and the head of RSC Marketing, ‘Paul Spero’, was a magician who had abjured his magic. Finally taken into the Cube space, the Brittonioni Brothers, assisted by Puck, show the start of their film, a strange world of fact, anecdote, video presentation that merges into real life and general confusion.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); magic; Complete Works Festival (Stratford upon Avon 2006-7); Multimedia productions