A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

2017 Young Vic Writer William Shakespeare Design and Light Johannes Schütz Costumes Michaela Barth Sound Paul Arditti Dramaturgy Zoë Svendsen Music Harvey Brough Movement Jenny Ogilvie Cast Oliver Alvin-Wilson / Geoff Aymer / Leo Bill / Sam Cox / John Dagleish / Michael Gould / Aaron Heffernan / Anastasia Hille / Lloyd Hutchinson / Anna Madeley / Douggie McMeekin / Melanie Pappenheim / Jemima Rooper / Matthew Steer Production photographs Keith Pattison Stage photographs Arwed Messmer

“Simmering hatred, lust and violence are never far away in a disturbing production that delves deep into the collective unconscious… As the play-scene spirals into chaos, Oliver Alvin-Wilson as Demetrius reiterates his earlier line: “Are you sure that we are awake? In exploring the thin division between daily reality and our darkest imaginings, that is the question disturbingly posed by this bracing production” The Guardian

“There's a deviant, mind-altering drollery running through this that I found delicious… Hill-Gibbins ups the ante in a production that feels all the more dazzlingly imaginative because it is both heightened and almost downbeat in its rampant dissidence” The Independant

“Director Joe Hill-Gibbins returns to the Young Vic with his trademark audacious style in this dirty and stripped back interpretation of the Dream… Leo Bell is exceptional as Bottom and is by turns hilarious and grotesque. He delivers an exhausting and demanding performance with complete skill and talent” Attitude

“Hill-Gibbins is a champion of the romantically challenged. He collects bruised hearts and lovesick souls; his shows seethe with petty jealousies, rejection and lusts that have nowhere to go… Most directors stage love stories in search of something else.They use Romeo and Juliet to talk about youth or they examine exile through As You Like It. It’s as if they take love itself for granted. Hill-Gibbins, by contrast, heads straight for the heart” The Guardian