{"id":1898350,"date":"2026-04-23T05:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1898350"},"modified":"2026-04-23T05:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:16:08","slug":"shakespeare-play-becomes-queer-brummie-love-story-at-the-rep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1898350","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare play becomes queer Brummie love story at the Rep"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/a848\/live\/68928fc0-3e74-11f1-8f78-2b3776d2d1d0.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Artistic director Joe Murphy said the show was “alive with the accents and lived experiences of the city”<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It will include regional accents delivering Shakespearean dialogue, punctuated by hit pop music and original songs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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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”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Murphy was previously a director at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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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”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Any shift or change has been done with love,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BirminghamBirmingham Rep<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Charlotte Wallis from Wolverhampton is making her professional stage debut as Helena<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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About half of the cast are from the West Midlands, including three who were found during open auditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Two, including Charlotte Wallis from Wolverhampton, who plays Helena, will make their professional stage debuts. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Wallis auditioned after seeing a social media post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It said: ‘We want real people that you’d see in a Birmingham nightclub’, and I thought: ‘That’s me’,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She added it was a “full-circle moment”, having trained with the Rep’s youth company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Being able to find truth through silliness and silliness through truth… is amazing, because Shakespeare can feel intimidating,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The main thing was bringing the language to yourself and not feeling like you don’t have a right to Shakespeare, because everybody does.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Adam<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Adam Carver said their drag alter ego Fatt Butcher had plenty of parallels with the character of Puck<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Puck is very mischievous in between the fairy world and the mortal world, causing chaos,” they said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“As a queer artist, a drag performer, that feels very much in hand with what the essence of Puck is.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It is the first time that the play’s co-director, Madeleine Kluje, has worked on a Shakespeare play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She said incorporating Brummie, South Asian and African Caribbean accents were important.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We wanted it to sit in people’s natural accents – it’s Shakespeare on a Birmingham stage, let’s go for it,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Birmingham Rep pioneered Shakespeare productions in modern dress when it staged a reimagined Cymbeline in 1923. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This latest modern interpretation is aimed at younger audiences, with 5,000 tickets available for \u00a35 for those under 25. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Teenagers attending with adults go free. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs from 25 April to 24 May.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC Birmingham on <\/i>BBC Sounds<\/i>, <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>X<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cj3745y2em0o”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/a848\/live\/68928fc0-3e74-11f1-8f78-2b3776d2d1d0.jpg”] BBC Artistic director Joe Murphy said the show was “alive with the accents and lived experiences of the city” 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-1898350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1898350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1898350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1898350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1898350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}