Theatre-goers in and around Chichester have been given an early taste of what to expect from the Festival Theatre’s 2026 finale: a vivid reworking of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in 1994 Sussex, with performances running from 18 September to 17 October.
Modern Sussex, Elizabethan language
The production, mounted at the Festival Theatre, relocates the play’s misrule and magic to the county and its youth culture of the mid-1990s. The creative team promise a show that keeps Shakespeare’s language at its heart while dressing the action in the colours and sounds of recent memory — raves, club culture and the clash between conservative local authority and a hedonistic counterculture spread across the South Downs.
“It’s 1994 in Chichester, and Tory MP Theseus is riding high after shutting down free raves across the county,”
Artistic Director Justin Audibert will co-direct with Hannah Joss. The casting blends familiar faces and newer graduates, signalling a production aimed at both long-standing Festival patrons and younger audiences.
Key cast and characters
Headlining the ensemble is comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa in the role of Bottom. Sharing the stage are performers with recent Chichester and national credits, including Eve Ponsonby as Titania and David Sturzaker as Oberon. The company also features experienced and emerging actors in the play’s interlocking comic and romantic strands.
| Role | Actor |
|---|---|
| Bottom | Munya Chawawa |
| Titania | Eve Ponsonby |
| Oberon | David Sturzaker |
| Theseus | Tom Kanji |
What the production promises
- A translation of Shakespeare’s comic chaos into a late 20th-century Sussex setting.
- Contemporary visual and musical references — raves, DJ culture and clubland imagery.
- A mix of established performers and recent drama school graduates.
The reimagining places the traditional authority figures — a local MP and police chief — against dissident youth who flee to the South Downs, where the fairy-world’s mischief upends romantic and social hierarchies. Producers say this contemporary frame allows audiences to experience Shakespeare’s themes of desire, authority and transformation through a recognisably local lens.
For Chichester residents, the show presents an opportunity to see the city and its surrounding landscapes reworked as the backdrop to an exuberant, occasionally anarchic night-time world. The choice to stage the play in a near-contemporary setting follows recent seasons’ experiments with recontextualising classics to speak directly to present-day concerns and local identity.
Tickets and further casting details are expected via the Festival Theatre’s regular channels. With its combination of star names and homegrown talent, the production looks set to be one of the highlights of Chichester’s theatrical calendar next autumn.
