Footsbarn Make Dream Return to London Park in Nov

Acclaimed physical theatre company Footsbarn will be visiting London for a second time this year, bringing their award-winning carnivalesque production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Victoria park from the 12 to 30 November 2008 (previews from 7 November).

Footsbarn marked a return to the capital for the first time in 15 years when they presented A Shakespeare Party as part of the Globe’s Totus Mundus season back in May (See News, 6 Feb 2008). The sell-out run of five performances prompted Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole to dub them “the parents of Complicite and the grandparents of Kneehigh”.

Footsbarn’s take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream has toured internationally and won a Total Theatre award at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe for “making a significant contribution to physical and visual theatre” (See News, 22 Aug 2008). It will be presented in Victoria park in the company’s specially constructed and now-trademark circus tent.

Since setting up in a barn belonging to Oliver Foot’s farm in Cornwall over 35 years ago, Footsbarn has toured the world, communicating Shakespeare’s works through “music, magic and mayhem”. Originally an all-British ensemble, the company, who are now based in France, currently includes 12 different nationalities of actors and musicians under the directorship of Paddy Hayter.

– By Theo Bosanquet