Be the first to live the Dream

Theatre-lovers of Sevenoaks can be the first in the country to enjoy the new show from award-winning Shakespeare 4 Kidz.

The professional Oxted-based company has revived its hit musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which starts its UK and international tour on September 14 in Mansfield. 

But, after rehearsing there, S4K will preview the production at the Stag on Saturday September 11. The show starts at 2pm.

A host of celebrities are sending the show on its way with good luck messages from Dames Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, Jason Donovan, Graham Norton, Barbara Windsor and Victoria Wood to name just a few.

Fairies and fun, royalty and romance, magic and misunderstandings: A Midsummer Night’s Dream has them all and more. So, little wonder this enchanting play is one of the most popular ever written.

Who can resist the fabulous story of a Duke marrying his Amazonian queen, two sets of lovers who elope into the woods where the audience finds feuding fairies and a naughty sprite called Puck, whose mismanaged magic causes no end of hilarity?

And not forgetting the group of Athenian workmen planning to put on a play to entertain the royal couple at their wedding celebrations.

Bottom is one of theatre’s funniest roles. Audiences are guaranteed a great laugh when Puck’s prank puts an asses head onto him and fairy queen Titania wakes up and promptly falls in love with him.

The S4K cast includes some company favourites, including Sean Luckham as Bottom, Noel Andrew Harron as Puck and Richard Munday as Oberon. He is one of the acclaimed line-up of Twelve Tenors.

The Dream is one of six S4K titles, following on from the 2009/10 national and international hit tour of Macbeth.

Every S4K show uses the whole Shakespearean plot but uses only the most famous original lines and slots them into modern language so that everyone – even the youngest primary school children – can understand.

Adults in the audience who have previously been baffled by the Bard will find that they can at last understand what it is all about!

There are also songs, dances and lots of spellbinding effects as the fairies create a world of wonder in the woods.

Here’s what the stars said:

Dame Judi Dench: (Titania at the Rose in Kingston this year): “I am happy to support any approach that helps children to understand Shakespeare’s plays and to realise that they are about emotions that we all share – love, jealousy, anger etc – all of which can be found in The Dream!”

Dame Helen Mirren:  “Good wishes to Shakespeare 4 Kidz. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the Avatar of Shakespeare, with something to be enjoyed by all age groups, a great message and lots of fun and fantasy. Enjoy!”

Victoria Wood: “Good luck, stay cool – there’s nothing worse than a nervous Bottom!”

Graham Norton: “Have a wonderful show. Good Puck to you all!”

Jason Donovan: “It is great for kids to appreciate at an early age great writing and none has a better grasp of the English language than Shakespeare himself. Enjoy the journey kids!”

Barbara Windsor: “To all the Shakespeare 4 Kidz, I would like to wish you lots of luck with your A Midsummer Night's Dream tour. What a wonderful way to introduce Shakespeare to a younger audience. To all of you who are performing, and to all who are watching, ENJOY! Lots of love Barbara Windsor x”

Corrie’s Archie Shuttleworth Roy Hudd, whose Bottom was a big hit in the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, even wrote S4K a special good luck poem.

And Loose Woman/Calendar Girl Lynda Bellingham remembers the fun she had when she appeared in the play.

“Amazingly my first professional role was Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Pendley Shakespeare Festival in Tring, Herts. It was an open air theatre and I had to run like the wind down a leafy glade arriving centre stage to say "Over hill over dale I do wander everywhere” etc. My first ever crit in the local paper said that if I never made it as an actress I could always try my hand in the 100 metres as I was so fast!”

S4K promise a Dream show for all the family. So, why not fly away for some fun with the fairies!

Tickets are £5 for adults and £3 for children (under 16). Or buy a £10 family ticket which admits either two adults plus two under 16s or one adult with three under 16s. Students also qualify for the child rate.

Box office for the Stag: 01732 450175.