A daring new vision of Shakespeare's Dream

Joe Hill-Gibbins directs his provocative new version of Shakespeare's ethereal dreamscape play, following on from his successful productions of Measure For Measure (starring Romola Garai) and The Changeling. Substituting a wild house rave for the tangled woods of the Bard's original play, our characters are sucked into a surreal and nightmarish sequence of events, with two enigmatic figures looking on from the windows. The outlandish design is provided by Johannes Schutz, who created the edgy surrounds of the theatre's 2012 production of Chekhov's Three Sisters.

What to expect

With details keeping on the down-low until release, Hill-Gibbins has hinted mysteriously about what patrons can expect from his version of Dream. Describing it as "a grownup play about adult relationships" rather than "fickle adolescence and wacky fairies", the emphasis of the tale is about the complex, often painful intricacies of love, without resorting to deux ex machina. And as it is a comedy, expect the laughs to come, but from a much darker source than is usually hinted at in more traditional productions of Dream - after all, sometimes the biggest laughs come from the darkest places.