All is Mended...

The Royal Shakespeare Company are marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death with a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring various different amateur companies playing the Mechanicals and local school children as the fairies.  I went to see the first leg of their ten venue tour in Newcastle on Monday and thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly Lucy Ellinson's performance as Puck.  There's something  liberating about hearing Shakespeare in a regional accent - especially one's own! - and it helps to break down the 'elitist' barrier a little more.  See the trailer for this production on the RSC's website.

Lucy Ellinson and Chu Omabala as Puck and Oberon

Although the RSC used Northern Stage's theatre (formerly the Newcastle Playhouse) rather than the Theatre Royal, there were a few Bensonian links.  The Bensons used to stay at the Grand Hotel in Newcastle's Haymarket - now Blackwell's University bookshop - which is virtually next door to the playhouse and their 'fairy band' was also populated by local children, drilled by the actor playing Puck - who was usually a woman.

This week in 1912, the Company were appearing at the New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, the first of a two week season of Rep which included Dream.  The theatre has recently reopened after a major rebuild which has taken three years. A mixture of Phipps and Matcham architecture, this is how it looked in Benson's day:

Closed for many years as a theatre, it was used by Ken Russell for the film 'The Boyfriend' before fire, theft and vandalism brought it to the brink of demolition.

Filming 'The Boyfriend' in 1972

 Purchased by the New Theatre Royal Trust in the 1980s it came back into use as a theatre in 1984 and now has Grade II* listing.  So lovely to see a theatre come back from the brink!  It's on my bucket list...