Nick Bottom

After two years in the company in 1948, Alexander created the role of the jester in Ashton's full-length Cinderella.

That was followed by Briaxis in Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe in 1951, Eros and Sylvia in 1952, Fire in Homage to the Queen in 1953, Birthday Offering in 1956, Terenio and Ondine in 1958, Elaine in La Female Garde in 1960, which has just had a production on at the Royal Opera House in the last season, Bottom in the Dream in 1964, Thursday in Jazz Calendar in 1968, William Meath Baker in Enigma Variations, also in 1968, Peter Rabbit in Ashton's film of Beatrix Potter in 1970, and lastly, Natalia Petrovna's husband...

in a month in the country in 1976.

And now that's 30 years of creating for Ashton.

He never wanted to bore the public.

Yes, because he always said it's always better to be too short than too long.

And the dream, Bottom,

how

This is further complicated by Helena's decision to follow them all into the woods in the hope of winning Demetrius' heart.

At this point, the woods are getting crowded as the lovers are sharing the space with a group of rude mechanicals, a troupe of workers drunkenly rehearsing a play led by the jovial Nick Bottom.

Unbeknownst to them, the humans have entered into the world of the fairies.

Despite their magical splendour, Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies, have their own romantic problems.

Furious at his inability to control Titania, the jealous Oberon commands the trickster Puck to squeeze the juice of a magical flower over her eyes.

When she wakes up, she'll fall in love with the first thing she sees.

On his mission, Puck gleefully sprinkles the juice over the eyes of the napping Demetrius and Lysander, and transforms Bottom's head into that of a donkey for good measure.

As eyes flicker open, a night of chaos commences that includes broken hearts, mistaken identity, and transformations.

Let's speak to my self briefly.

I am prepared to deliver on short notice any one of a large number of Shakespearean parts; Othello, Romeo, Romeo, Bottom the weaver, King Henry IV, V, VI, Petruchio, oh, and, uh, Henry VIII.

I am reasonably familiar with the characters of Shakespeare, sir.

Ah, good.

Exactly.

And then, of course, you have Bottom the Weaver.

I love Bottom so much.

He's the best.

He and his amateur acting troupe, the Mechanicals, are out in the woods rehearsing a play.

Pyramus and Thisbe.

Right.

And Bottom famously gets his head turned into an ass's head by Puck.

So, whilst the opening scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream adheres to many of the generic expectations of early modern comedy, two young lovers are separated by an older, ineffectual patriarch who will inevitably be overcome in the comic resolution of the final act, there is still something missing.

The evident comic potential in the tangled love web of the four young Athenians is so far unrealised, and it is only with the arrival on stage of the most celebrated clown of the late Elizabethan period, Will Kemp, the first actor to play Bottom, that the play staggers into a more humorous vein.

Nevertheless, within the comic malapropisms and bombastic flair we see in the clowning of the rude mechanicals, there is also a metatheatrical comment on the nature of acting on the early modern stage, defined by an altogether different kind of humour.

So the question's on humour.

It kind of foreshadows the tragical mirth and tedious brief scene.

Absolutely.

And Bottom

immediately agrees with Quince, doesn't he? And says, oh, yes, a very good piece and a merry.