Hooray! After three years of waiting I finally got to the Shakespeare Festival again at Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds. Frog and I went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I can happily report it was fantastic. It’s funny, I was looking forward to it for ages, but as soon as the play started I was a little worried I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as last time. Last time I saw it, Wayne Sleep played Puck, Pearce Brosnan’s son was either Demetrius or Lysander and Mina Anwar was Titania. I know you shouldn’t judge a play by the level of fame of the actors, but it was certainly novel seeing people off the telly (and Wayne Sleep was awesome). Seeing different actors walk out, I immediately started to compare them to last time and then worried that they wouldn’t be as good!
I shouldn’t have worried…Puck (Steven Blakeley) lived up to Wayne Sleep and I was particularly impressed by that as that was the hardest act to follow. Helena (Martha Swann) was a brilliant comic part, Oberon (David Davis) had a really good stage presence and the four tradesman (Mark Arden, Robert Crumpton the lion, John Ioannou, David Vale) got lots of laughs. I recognised several of the actors from last time and it was nice to see them again. I wish I’d gone to see Much Ado about Nothing afterwards to see them playing different roles. I get the impression from the gallery (here) that they play really different parts.
Many thanks to Chris from the British Shakespeare Company for letting me know about the photo gallery. And apologies for the hastily-written post – if I don’t write this now I never will 
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