Where: Old Joint Stock Theatre, 4 Temple Row West, Birmingham B2 5NY
£: 35, concessions 25 (tickets for individual events are also available)
What is it?
Tim Hodgson of The Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham city centre has teamed up with Frank Bramwell – playwright and founder of theatre practitioners inamoment – to present the first annual Alternative Shakespeare Festival.
The festival is about celebrating Shakespeare, but is also about celebrating the local theatre community and the partnerships that the Old Joint Stock has developed. All of the pieces in the festival are created by the Old Joint Stock’s resident companies. The festival begins with Birmingham Metropolitan College’s BMAPA Performing Arts students presenting two abridged and very modern adaptations of The Tempest and the Taming of the Shrew – each just 45 minutes long. Later in the festival the Old Joint Stock’s resident comedy improv group, Upstairs Improv, have added a one-off Shakespearean theme to their regular 4-way improv battles.
Sandwiched between them is a revival of Frank Bramwell’s hit Shakespeare sequel Romeo and Juliet For All Time, in which the lovers are reunited and given one hour to change their fate. The flagship of the festival is the premiere of Frank’s new Shakespeare sequel, Ophelia, Princess of Denmark, in which Hamlet, King Claudius and Hamlet’s doomed love Ophelia find themselves marooned in the afterlife, and seek to find out just what really happened first time round in the original Hamlet. What follows is a fantastic re-exploration of many of Shakespeare’s most famous words and well-known themes.
The festival line-up is as follows:
18th – 19th July at 7.30pm
The Tempest & Taming of the Shrew
Tickets £10 and £8 concessions
20th – 21st July at 7.30pm (Sat Mat at 2pm)
Romeo & Juliet For All Time
Tickets £12 and £10 concessions
26th July at 8pm
Improv Slam (Shakespeare Edition)
Tickets £7.50
27th – 28th July at 7.30pm (Sat Mat at 2pm)
Ophelia, Princess of Denmark
Tickets £12 and £10 concessions
(Festival Ticket £35 and £25 concessions)
More info: www.oldjointstocktheatre.co.uk