Shakespeare play becomes queer Brummie love story

Changing the gender of characters in a new production of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays is "a massive celebration of fluidity", a theatre's artistic director has said.

Traditionally set in ancient Greece, A Midsummer Night's Dream has been re-set in modern day Birmingham for a production at the city's Rep theatre.

It will include regional accents delivering Shakespearean dialogue, punctuated by hit pop music and original songs.

The character Lysander has been changed to Lysandra to form an all-female couple with Hermia, something which artistic director Joe Murphy said made the text "more relevant to the experience of young people" by showing that "love is never wrong".

Murphy was previously a director at Shakespeare's Globe in London.

He said he believed that Shakespeare purists would love the adaption, adding that "we haven't mucked around" with the original text, but had added "all these different flavours and textures".

"Any shift or change has been done with love," he said.

About half of the cast are from the West Midlands, including three who were found during open auditions.

Two, including Charlotte Wallis from Wolverhampton, who plays Helena, will make their professional stage debuts.

Wallis auditioned after seeing a social media post.

"It said: 'We want real people that you'd see in a Birmingham nightclub', and I thought: 'That's me'," she said.

She added it was a "full-circle moment", having trained with the Rep's youth company.

"Being able to find truth through silliness and silliness through truth... is amazing, because Shakespeare can feel intimidating," she said.

"The main thing was bringing the language to yourself and not feeling like you don't have a right to Shakespeare, because everybody does."

Local drag artist Adam Carver, also known as Fatt Butcher, plays the quick-witted sprite Puck, and admitted that they brought some of their drag persona to the role.

"Puck is very mischievous in between the fairy world and the mortal world, causing chaos," they said.

"As a queer artist, a drag performer, that feels very much in hand with what the essence of Puck is."

Carver added the show put a "2026 Brummie twist" on the classic comedy, alongside many of the elements audiences would expect from a Shakespeare play.

It is the first time that the play's co-director, Madeleine Kluje, has worked on a Shakespeare play.

She said incorporating Brummie, South Asian and African Caribbean accents were important.

"We wanted it to sit in people's natural accents - it's Shakespeare on a Birmingham stage, let's go for it," she said.

The Birmingham Rep pioneered Shakespeare productions in modern dress when it staged a reimagined Cymbeline in 1923.

This latest modern interpretation is aimed at younger audiences, with 5,000 tickets available for £5 for those under 25.

Teenagers attending with adults go free.

A Midsummer Night's Dream runs from 25 April to 24 May.

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