A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Summary

1958 BBC production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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 9 November 1958

Time

8.45-10.20pm

Series

Sunday-Night Theatre

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Rudolph Cartier

Playwright

William Shakespeare

Adapted for Television by

Eric Crozier (1914-1994)

Composer

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Musical Arrangements by

Leslie Bridgewater

Designer

Clifford Hatts

Costume Supervisor

Pamela Glanville

Make-up Supervisor

Rosemary Ross

Choreographer

Alfred Rodrigues

Cast

Michael Bates	Starveling
Geoffrey Bayldon	Philostrate
Jennifer Daniel	First Fairy
Vivienne Drummond	Helena
Christine Finn	Hermia
Ronald Fraser	Flute
John Justin	Oberon
Eric Lander	Demetrius
John Longden	Egeus
Gillian Lynne	Puck
Gaynie MacSweenie	Mustardseed
Miles Malleson (1889-1969)	Quince
Hazel Merry	Moth
David Oxley	Lysander
Natasha Parry	Titania
Paul Rogers	Bottom
Vernie Ruthven	Cobweb
Peter Sallis	Snug
Jane Shore	Peaseblossom
John Warner	Snout
John Westbrook	Theseus
Margaret Whiting	Hippolyta

Additional details

Play tags

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

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 7 November 1958 (Magazine)

Linking notes

article, pp. 4 and 7, and listing, p. 11