A Midsummer Night's Dream - 2007


The Importance of Being Earnest
- 2006

The Taming of the Shrew
- 2006


Macbeth - 2005-2006

The Merry Wives of Windsor - 2005

The Comedy of Errors
- 2004


Cyrano de Bergerac - 2004

Love's Labour's Lost - 2004

A Winter's Tale - 2003

Two Gentlemen of Verona - 2003

As you Like It
- 2003

Dr Faustus - 2002

Much Ado About Nothing - 2002

Kevin Hosier - Director
Adrian Lillie - Designer
Georgina King - Assistant Designer
Lisa Westerhout - Music

Philip Buck - Silvius/Charles/Lord
David Chittenden - Jaques/Oliver
Jonathan Coote - Duke Senior/Frederick/Corin/Sir Oliver Martext
Dafydd Gwyn Howells - Touchstone
Deborah Mason - Adam/Audrey
George May - Orlando
Hannah Mercer - Phebe/Dennis/Lord
Charlotte Windmill - Celia
Kirsty Yates - Rosalind

This was an honest and very funny production from an excellent company.

Oxford Times


The emphasis is on comedy throughout, with most of the cast doubling, or in some cases, tripling their characters… but such was the assuredness of Kevin Hosier's direction that this was never a problem… The entire cast deserves huge praise for their work.
There were too many flashes of comedy brilliance in this production to list them, the audience were kept laughing throughout but particular mention must be made of the herd of goats which appeared in the second half.

Oxford Daily Information


The colourful costumes and humorous use of props added to the fine performances.

BBC


The numerous children in the audience seemed to be laughing as much as the rest of us. Perhaps the actors played up to the younger ones on the front row once or twice, but this isn't really a criticism - making the play accessible to all can only be a good thing.

BBC

“Much virtue in ‘if’…”
Act V Scene iv


So says Touchstone at the conclusion of his famous exposition on the “degrees of the lie”, which, whilst entertaining both the on and off-stage audience also provides useful cover for Rosalind’s change into her wedding gown in the fifth act of As You Like It. There is indeed much virtue in “if”. In fact, most of what we do in the theatre is based on this assumption.

“If”. This tiny word holds great power. Succumb to the obstructive “if” and you may never get out of the starting blocks. If we choose to produce As You Like It, will an audience come to see it? Will we be able to effectively tell the story if we only have nine actors? If it rains for two months, will we go bust? And so the obstructive “if” takes over and you never do anything at all and spend your summer on a beach somewhere (if you can afford it).

Far more productive it is to unleash the positive power of “if”. Every story starts with an “if”, every scene starts with an “if” and, most importantly, every rehearsal starts with an “if” and this is the cornerstone of the creative process. As a director, I try to use the word “if”…possibly in conjunction with “what” (resulting in “what if”, or occasionally “if what” should I not be thinking straight) more than any other. As in “what if we pretend its winter in Arden and dress the actors in fur, despite he fact that it’s midsummer” That sort of thing. At which point the actor could say “what if I quit?” Which, of course, they never would, because they’re all so desperate for work.

“If”. You can’t avoid it in the theatre. Far greater minds than mine are equally fascinated by the word. I read somewhere that a certain scholar produced a magnificently absurd number of variants of meaning for Hymen’s line “If truth holds true contents” (Act 5 Scene 4 line 129). This scholar, presumably for want of anything better to do, argued that the ambiguities of each of the five words (including “if”) of the clause produces a total of seventy two variants of meaning – each representing a different “if truth holds true contents”. Sadly we had to cut that line. Terribly upsetting for him after all that work. If we’d have had more actors we could have left it in. Oh yes. Much virtue in “if”. But there’s much virtue in “if” for the audience too. If it’s twenty five degrees in the shade, will you believe that it’s four degrees Arden? If an actor appears three times in quick succession as three different characters, will you believe that they are three different people? If we chop the text around, put lines in the wrong character’s mouth and eliminate other characters altogether so we can make the play work for us – will you forgive us? Well? Will you?

And if it rains – will you get your money back? No way! This is England. What did you expect? Bring an umbrella next time.

Kevin Hosier
Oxford July 2003

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