The MSC Podcast
Warning: This episode contains language that some people might find offensive.
Tickets: £14/£10 concessions. Group bookings available. Wheelchair friendly.
From https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/the-manchester-shakespeare-company
The Manchester Shakespeare Company’s first Post-Covid production for is ‘Summer Dreaming-The Musical’ an irreverent musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Set in the woods around the City of Mancia in the mid 1970’s ‘Summer Dreaming’ follows the lives and loves of four very different couples as they struggle against the odds to make the course of true love run smooth.
The betrothal of The Duke of Wilmslow to Lady Penelope Arcadia is cause for celebration: a concert given by the good people of Mancia in the honour of the ‘happy’ couple.
But the workers at Truss & Son, led by Shop Steward Peter Quince, plan to use the occasion to launch a subversive theatrical attack on the aristocracy. Talented, but frustrated shift workers Nick Bottom and Frances Flute seize their chance to escape from the factory by hijacking Pete’s dire Marxist-Leninist version of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’.
A different kind of arranged marriage is causing Hermia Strains a more immediate problem: Her father has promised her hand (and everything else) to Factory boss’s son Donald Truss, in order to facilitate his rise in polite society. Hermia has other plans though and intends to elope with her penniless true love Leroy Sanders through the enchanted Forest of Ardwick to stay with Leroy’s Gran in Glossop.
Pursued by the furious Donald and his devoted but recently dumped ex, Helena Handcart, the lovers soon become lost in dark woods, frequented by Hippies, Druids, Fairies and that ‘Merry wanderer of the night’ Robbo Goodstuff and his sidekick Deirdre Turnip.
Hearts are broken and mended before the night is out and Nick Bottom has the trip of his life when he becomes entangled in a chemically enhanced custody battle between Oberon and his estranged wife Titania, Queen of the Druids.
The Production Includes:
75% Neurodivergent Cast, Mancia, Salforde-Upon-Irwell and The Forest of Ardwick, A Custody Battle, Posh People getting married(reluctantly) Feminism in action, Industrial relations, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, The Equal Pay Act 1973, Lenin’s Tomb, Hippies, Druids and mind-altering plants, A Wrestling Match, The invention of ‘Dogging’, A 1970’s Talent Show & Lots of new songs!
The Manchester Shakespeare Company (Gina Frost & John Topliff) have been producing their thoroughly Mancunian versions of Shakespeare’s plays since 2013. Including: ’Desperate Measures’, ‘Before Juliet’, ‘12 Nights or WTF?’ ‘Winter’, ‘Will & Anne’ and ‘Will Whittington & His Cat’.
12 Nights (or w.t.f??)
Warning: This episode contains language that some people might find offensive.
In this episode Gina and John talk about the third Manchester Shakespeare Company production '12 Nights or W.T.F?
This was the play that set the standard for all future productions. A wickedly twisted adaptation of Shakespeare’s gender bending comedy ‘Twelfth Night’. Twelve Nights is a madcap comedy that captures the spirit of the original play with a decidedly modern take on gender and sexuality. After its original production at the Three Minute Theatre in December 2014 '12 Nights' was performed with different casts in many venues including libraries, churches, public squares and festivals.
‘Twelve Nights or WTF?’ tells the story of Horsina Pilton, a rich, successful businesswoman, desperately lovesick for the dishy film actor Oliver De Tabloids who is holed up in the penthouse suite of the Mancia Pilton Hotel. Access to Oliver is jealously guarded by his overbearing PA, Malcolm Fabrese and Oliver is moving to Hollywood in twelve days’ time to work on his next movie.
Meanwhile, Oliver’s boozy, spendthrift Aunt, Tia Maria is also trying to get access to Oliver in order to marry him off to her air-headed Valley Girl protégé Andrea Palemuscht. Things are not going well though and Andrea is about to call it a day, leaving Tia Maria without funding for her liquid lunches.
The arrival of illegal immigrant twins Sebastian and Viola only adds to the complications as Horsina sends Sebastian (disguised as Sebrina) to woo Oliver on her behalf, with hilarious and disturbing consequences for everybody.
Original Cast:
Sophie Anne Ellicott as Horsina Pilton
Louise Wilson as Tia Maria and Antonia Cruz
Tony Charnock as Malcolm Fabrese
Sophie Grace Toland as Viola and Andrea Palemuscht
Daniel Brotherton as Sebastian/Sebrina
Charlie Colquhoun as Oliver De Tabloids
Written and Directed by John Topliff and Gina T. Frost.
Music written and arranged by John Topliff and Gina T. Frost.
In this first episode, Gina and John talk briefly about the origins of the Manchester Shakespeare Company, from its inception at the Three Minute Theatre in 2013, its first productions and the exciting future that lies ahead.