Magical version of Bard classic

The production plays Chichester’s Minerva Theatre from December 5-10 in what they promise will be a magical new version.

Ferdy Roberts, who plays Puck and is one of the co-artistic directors of Filter Theatre, said: “2012 will be our tenth anniversary. We officially set up in 2002, but we started working on our first show in 2001 - and it has been great!

“We set up the company because we wanted to work with people that we were at college with in our spare time when we weren’t working elsewhere. As we came out of drama school, we were all aiming to get jobs wherever we could. Filter was just an idea about getting together in our spare time so that we didn’t end up losing faith in doing what we wanted to do. It’s since spiralled to become almost full time.”

The success has been partly because they have stuck together as a group, Ferdy feels: “The guys that are the core of the company were all people that we were at drama school together with, actors or musicians. The inspiration comes from within the group. The projects that we are looking at or doing, whether devised which we do as well, all come from us sitting in a pub somewhere.”

Key to the success has also been their distinctive character: “The way we use sound and music is probably our calling card. We work very closely with sound designers and musicians in the room from the very beginning. When we first started Filter at drama school, the two disciplines of drama and music never really crossed over, which we thought was a shame. The musicians were in the pit, and you never really see them which was a little bit weird.

“We thought we would put the musicians on the stage right from the very beginning. The idea is to hide nothing. It is all exposed. Everything is being created live, especially in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where we have got some quite amazing use of sound.”

Tickets on 01243 781312.