It is a challenge to make the 400-year-old works of Shakespeare relevant to a contemporary audience, but one that the Ugly Shakespeare Company meets triumphantly. They specialise in performing shortened, accessible versions of the plays, especially to schools. Three actresses - one of them a stage manager filling in at the last minute - performed a 45-minute version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to an enthusiastic audience of St Paul’s staff and students. They made the play fun and interactive, keeping the audience entertained with modern references. Our own Waka Tate (Year 12) and Jayden White (Year 11) joined the actresses on stage to take part, performing enthusiastically.

The key points of the play were kept, so that our English students in the audience will be able to use it as part of their studies. It was a great event all round with tremendous performances from the actors. You would never have known that one of them was taking part at short notice. The audience also deserves credit for joining in with the interactive parts of the show and concentrating on the play. 

Finn Lloyd (Year 11)