A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Part 1

Summary

1947 BBC live broadcast from the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, of Robert Atkins’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. The production was broadcast in two parts: the first half on 28 July and the second half on 29 July 1947.

Theatre play

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare [more information]

Play synopsis

'Egeus orders his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius; she refuses because she and Lysander are in love. Her friend Helena is in love with Demetrius, who once loved her but now does not. Under the law of Athens, Duke Theseus gives Hermia four days to obey her father on pain of death or confinement to a nunnery. Hermia and Lysander escape this harsh law by running away to the woods. Demetrius pursues them there, with Helena pursing him. In the woods, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of fairies, have quarrelled because Titania refuses to hand over an Indian changeling boy to be Oberon’s page. Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck, Robin Goodfellow, to press the juice of a magic flower on Titania’s eyes as she sleeps; it will make her fall in love with the first being she sees on waking. In an attempt to reconcile Demetrius and Helena, Oberon orders that juice should be put on his eyes whilst he is sleeping and she is near, but Robin mistakenly puts it on Lysander, who thus falls in love with Helena. She thinks she is being mocked. Love-juice is then placed on Demetrius’ eyes in order to rectify the mistake, but the result is that he too falls for Helena. The boys fight over her and the girls quarrel. While Titania has been sleeping, a company of Athenian artisans under the leadership of Peter Quince has come to the wood to rehearse a play for the ensuing wedding festivities of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Robin puts an ass’s head on Bottom the weaver and because of the love-juice Titania falls in love with him. Eventually all is restored to right and the artisans perform their comically tragic play of Pyramus and Thisbe (source: http://www.rscshakespeare.co.uk/midSummerNightsDream.html, accessed 12 November 2012).

Production history

Written around 1600.

Date of transmission

Monday 28 July 1947

Time

7.30-8.30pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Presented for Television by

Ian Orr-Ewing

Theatre Producer

Robert Atkins (1886-1972)

Playwright

William Shakespeare

Orchestra Directed by

Rosabel Watson

Dances Arranged by

Mary Honer

Cast

Robert Atkins (1886-1972)	Bottom
Ernest Bale	Egeus
Anne Brooke	Helena
Thomas Dance	Quince
Gwendolen Dante	Hippolyta
Yvonne Forster	Hermia
Clement Hamelin	Starveling
Paul Hansard	Oberon
Mary Honer	Puck
William Hutchison	Lysander
Patricia Kneale	Titania
Hugh Manning	Theseus
David March	Flute
Michael Meacham	Philostrate
Ewen Solon	Demetrius
Diana Wilson	First Fairy
Ronald Woodroofe	Snug
Leslie Wright	Snout

Additional details

Origination

Live from theatre

Vision original

Monochrome

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

children’s drama; Elizabethan drama; Greece, as theme or setting; marriage; supernatural; theatre or acting, as theme

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 25 July 1947 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 31; photograph and caption, p. 29

Associated programmes

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Part 2 (BBC, 1947)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
BBC Television