A Midsummer Night’s Dream [excerpts]

Summary

BBC production of excerpts from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, produced by Dallas Bower.

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

Thursday 18 February 1937

Time

3.55pm (6 mins)

Series

Scenes from Shakespeare

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Dallas Bower (1907-1999)

Cast

Patricia Hilliard	Titania
D. Hay Petrie	Bottom

Additional details

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

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1937 (Archive file)

Archive

BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) [more information]

Address

Peppard Road
Caversham Park
Reading
Berkshire
RG4 8TZ
UK

Telephone

+44 (0)118 948 6281

Email

heritage@bbc.co.uk

Website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/wac

Access

The WAC is open from 9.30am to 5.00pm on Wednesdays to Fridays throughout the year to academics, postgraduate students and writers by appointment.

Reference

T5/332, 1937-56

Title

BBC Television Programme Records: vol. 1, 1937-38 (Book)

Reference

London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1938

Linking notes

listing on p. 14

Title

Radio Times, 12 February 1937 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing on p. 8