A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Summary

1981 BBC production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, presented in the BBC Television Shakespeare series.

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

Sunday 13 December 1981

Time

7.15-8.10pm; 8.15-9.15pm

Series

BBC Television Shakespeare

Channel

BBC2

Production company

BBC

Credits

Director

Elijah Moshinsky

Producer

Jonathan Miller

Lighting

John Summers

Playwright

William Shakespeare

Composer

Stephen Oliver

Designer

David Myerscough-Jones

Costume Designer

Amy Roberts

Make-up Artist

Jenny Shircore

Choreographer

Eleanor Fazan

Script Editor

David Snodin

Cast

Tania Bennett	Fairy
Timothy Cross	Mustardseed
Phil Daniels	Puck
Nigel Davenport	Theseus
Don Estelle	Starveling
John Fowler	Flute
Brian Glover	Bottom
Pippa Guard	Hermia
Nicky Henson	Demetrius
Nat Jackley	Snout
Estelle Kohler	Hippolyta
Robert Lindsay	Lysander
Geoffrey Lumsden	Egeus
Lee Macdonald	Fairy
Dominic Martelli	Moth
Louise Mason	Fairy
Peter McEnery	Oberon
Cherith Mellor	Helena
Massimo Mezzofanti	Cobweb
Helen Mirren	Titania
Ray Mort	Snug
Geoffrey Palmer	Quince
Hugh Quarshie	Philostrate
Bruce Savage	Peaseblossom
Alexandra Segal	Fairy

Additional details

Play tags

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

Audiovisual sources

Title

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (BBC, 1981)

Archive

BBC Information and Archives [more information]

Address

White City
London
UK

Telephone

+44 (0)20 8008 2288

Website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/informationandarchives/

Access

BBC Information and Archives is not open to the public.

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 10 December 1981 (Magazine)

Linking notes

cover image; listing, p. 33; article, ‘Well-met by Moonlight’, pp. 11-12