The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream

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The Children’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is a 2001 British film directed by Christine Edzard. It retells Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream using the play’s complete text, with elaborate costumes and fully scaled sets built in the studio. The project was produced by Olivier Stockman, and the music by Michel Sanvoisin was performed by the Goldsmiths Youth Orchestra under conductor Eli Corp.

A remarkable feature of the film is its cast: 364 children aged 8 to 12 from eight primary schools in Rotherhithe, East London. The children were non-professional actors who helped with many parts of the production, from acting to making costumes and sets. Filming took about six months during the school year at Sands Films Studios, a former docklands warehouse where Edzard had previously worked on other films.

Edzard chose to work with untrained children to avoid the cultural baggage that sometimes comes with drama school training. Her idea was to let the children read and inhabit Shakespeare’s lines in a fresh, instinctive way. The cast was divided into three groups—lovers, fairies, and mechanicals—and the children would move between roles as the story shifted from the real world to the magical forest. This approach was designed to highlight childlike concerns and wonder rather than a traditional adult interpretation of the play.

The production faced funding difficulties. The Arts Council, followed by the British Film Council, declined lottery funding, arguing the project was not sufficiently creative or was too political. Olivier Stockman criticized these decisions as political while noting the disparity with funding given to more famous Shakespeare productions.

A real-life event occurred during filming: the fatal stabbing of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor near Sands Studios. The tragedy drew attention to Southwark’s inner-city estates and the area’s funding and resource challenges, though the Sands project continued.

Critics were mixed but generally positive about the film’s charm, honesty, and inventive staging. Some noted that the young actors’ abilities varied and that the project could feel distant at times, but many praised its originality, the sense of wonder it captured, and the way its structure lets the children become part of the story. Mark Thornton Burnett called it a wonderful achievement, and Radio Times described it as charming with a puppet-theatre feel, though some reviewers felt the film lacked immediacy. Overall, The Children’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is seen as a bold, unique experiment in presenting Shakespeare through the eyes of children.