A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been a popular choice amongst Bradfield’s Theatre Directors over the years, enjoy quotes from the Bradfield Chronicles on its seven previous incarnations…

1916

The first performance was in ‘Gray Pit as it was then called, during the First World War. The Chronicle noted that during those war years ‘it was a real tonic to be light-hearted just for one afternoon.’

 ‘In these days of gorgeous scenery it is well sometimes to remember that this beautiful play, so steeped in moonlight, was first acted, with a few sticks for trees, in a theatre open to the afternoon sun!’

1938

Of this production the Chronicle reported ‘There could scarcely be a less promising play for a school performance, or so one might be forgiven for supposing. Schoolboys as yokels might perhaps be easy enough; as lovers would seem less of a safe bet, and as fairies, unthinkable. The remarkable fact about the Bradfield performance was not merely its success as a whole, but its success just in those roles which might have seemed beyond the reach of any but professional actors’

1963

Old Bradfield Charles Lepper (A 36-40) wrote for the Chronicle on the production

‘For just over half an hour no rain fell in ‘Greeker’; then started a sizeable deluge... During the interval the Head Master (whose entrance in wellingtons and sou’wester had not passed unnoticed) disappeared backstage, but soon re-emerged in ‘The woods near Athens’ to tell us that he had advised the actors to pack it in and they had nearly lynched him, he advised spectators who felt ‘at all uncomfortable’ to go: a mere handful of the 1,100 audience retired although the rain did not stop for a single moment’

1978

It was the turn of Charles Lepper (SCR 67-85) who had returned to the College as Head of the English Department to produce the play, in thankfully drier circumstances, and this production achieved great acclaim from its audiences,

‘This performance is above all a tribute to Charles Lepper who has managed to instil an astonishing degree of professionalism into untrained actors and whose use of the Greek Theatre is admirable. The difficulties of sightlines and audibility with a circular stage and a vast, outdoor auditorium should not be underestimated; and this year, as always, it was possible to see and hear from the farthest recesses of the theatre.’

1995

In the play was produced and directed by Hailz Osborne (SCR 85-98), the first member of female teaching staff at Bradfield, Greeker was ‘Transformed into modern rock style costume, gesture and music, the play became more of a hallucination where dream and reality become mixed up, with 60s flower power graphics creating a vivid psychedelic backdrop, especially in the pastoral scenes.’

2016

Tim Coker, Director of Performing Arts, saw Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary as a fitting opportunity to reprise the Bard and his dream was based around a Golden Age Hollywood Movie or in his words “a play within a movie, within a play’. Love in this version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream may have appeared glitzy and alluring, but like Hollywood, it was really only a dream.