Chichester Festival Theatre has published the first production photographs of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the show that closes its Festival 2026 season, with Munya Chawawa as Bottom and Eve Ponsonby as Titania.
The pictures went up on the theatre's own site on Wednesday 23 September, two days before the production's press night on Friday 25 September and five days after the first performance. A Midsummer Night's Dream opened at the Festival Theatre on Friday 18 September and runs there until Saturday 17 October, closing Chichester's Festival 2026 season. All the photographs are by Manuel Harlan.
What they show is a Shakespeare comedy moved wholesale into 1990s Sussex. The year is 1994, Theseus is a Conservative MP who has made his name closing down the county's free raves, and Egeus is the chief constable who helped him do it. Four young lovers take off for the South Downs to get away from all of it; over the fields, Oberon and Titania are bohemian landowners putting on an illicit rave of their own, with Puck as the fixer and a DJ known as The Changeling as the thing they are arguing about. The local Young Conservatives, meanwhile, are rehearsing a play for Theseus's wedding, with an over-eager new member called Bottom.
The production is co-directed by Justin Audibert, Chichester's Artistic Director, whose Hamlet and Redlands both played the Festival Theatre, and Hannah Joss, whose Choir the theatre staged earlier in the year.
Bottom is played by the comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa, whose name sits above the title on the theatre's own listing. Eve Ponsonby, who played Ophelia in Audibert's Hamlet at Chichester, is Titania; she took the part after Jemima Rooper, originally announced, withdrew for personal reasons. David Sturzaker, who has played Gareth Southgate on the UK tour of Dear England, is Oberon, and Shane David-Joseph is Puck.
The rest of the company is Charlie Beck as Snug and Mustardseed, Celeste Dodwell as Hippolyta, Henry Everett as Egeus, Tom Kanji as Theseus, Ellie Larkin as Lysanda, Afi Okaidja as Snout and Peaseblossom, Freya Parks as Helena, Gavin Rasmussen as The Changeling and Philostrate, Angela Sant'Albano as Hermia, Anna Soden as Starveling and Moth, Giles Taylor as Peter Quince, Kieran Taylor-Ford as Demetrius and Kishore Walker as Flute and Cobweb. The Ravers are Adhish Arul, Mariana Fonseca, Scarlette Guilfoyle, Hattie Musgrove, Jaz Reynolds, Cache Thake, Phoebe Tyler and Riley Woodford.
The set is designed by Joanna Scotcher and the costumes by Ryan Dawson Laight, with lighting by Elliot Griggs, music and sound by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite, video by Ian William Galloway and movement by Jade Hackett. Bethan Clark and Robin Hellier share the fight and intimacy direction, Giles Taylor is text consultant and the casting director is Matilda James CDG.
The run continues at the Festival Theatre in Oaklands Park until Saturday 17 October, with press night on Friday 25 September. Tickets start at £10 and are sold direct by Chichester Festival Theatre; the theatre's Prologue scheme also puts £5 seats in front of 16 to 30 year-olds across the whole Festival 2026 season.
