We're heading back to the 90s for this version of A Midsummer Night's Dream which celebrates Shakespeare's language while spinning the world of Elizabethan players into full-colour living memory. 

Artistic Director Justin Audibert follows his acclaimed Hamlet and hugely popular Redlands, co-directing with Hannah Joss (Choir) for our final Festival Theatre production of Festival 2026 - and it's sure to go out with a bang! 

But why the 90s? In a recent interview with the Chichester Observer, Hannah Joss explains where the idea and inspiration for this production came from.

'Our concept actually shines a light on the original play and gives it new interest and clarity. I think we've found something within the core of the play, and we've applied our own setting – a setting that really does identify some of the key themes and relationships of the original. 

'At the centre of A Midsummer Night's Dream is a culture clash in the original, the sharp civic laws of Athens which create a patriarchal society which is run by misogyny and then on the other hand you've got the freedom and the magic of the Shakespearean forest, a place of transformation where anything can happen. We are using Tory rule in Britain at a particular time in our version as this contrasts with this prevalent free party rave scene at the time, and it just felt like a ripe concept that would provide a huge amount of theatrical opportunity to create something massive, something high energy and high adrenaline on that big stage.'

Click here to read the full interview on the Sussex World website

Making his stage debut in this production, is comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa. After almost eight years of creating short-form satirical videos on social media, two Bafta-nominated TV documentaries, countless stand-up gigs and appearing on Taskmaster, Munya is ready for a new challenge, as he explains in his interview with the BBC. 

‘I take it super seriously and I'm very studious when we're in the room, I'm taking notes. I'm learning all of these mad Shakespeare terms like couplets and quatrains and anacreontics and stuff that definitely sounds made up but isn't.

'And I think also it's the perfect time to maybe... jump ship, I think is the right word.’

Munya fell in love with the theatre when he went to see The Lion King when he was 16 and realised it was like ‘the best movie you've ever seen, but in real life’.

However, returning as an adult, he felt out of place as a Black man. ‘In the shows I was going to, it didn't feel as though they were too welcoming to me being there, just through the small social cues.’

He had a lightbulb moment after watching For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy by Ryan Calais Cameron, which ‘I still think is the best play I've ever seen’. Chawawa found himself thinking, ‘I wish every Black boy in the world could watch this play.’ So he took a group of teenagers to watch it, which he describes as ‘the most fulfilling and magical and deeply moving experience’.

Inspired by their reactions, Chawawa set up Black Boys Theatre Club to take groups every month to plays, followed by a post-show discussion in Nando's. Black Boys Theatre Club will travel to see him in A Midsummer Night's Dream - and he hopes more young minds will be captivated by the ‘snow globe of human emotion’ that is live theatre.

‘Really, truly, where else can I go in real life and watch somebody express all emotions without restraint? Sadness, anger, joy, envy. And I can be metres away, sometimes centimetres away from seeing real human emotion - not through a screen of any size, but in the room,’ he says.

Click here to read the full article on the BBC Culture site 

A Midsummer Night's Dream opens in the Festival Theatre on Friday 18 September for just four weeks with tickets from £10. Fancy getting into the 90s spirit? Take a listen to our Dream Playlist with tracks selected by the company.