Eight years ago, an idea was hatched. It was a simple idea; to celebrate the talent of students within the MANCEP (Manchester Catholic Education Partnership) community through the work of William Shakespeare. Drama departments across eight institutions; 6 schools and 2 colleges rehearse a 30 minute version of one of Shakespeare’s plays and then, over two days in November, they all come together to perform in our very own Ellis and Kennedy Theatre at Loreto College in the MANCEP Shakespeare Festival.

The co-ordinator of the festival, Danny Price, Head of Performing Arts at Loreto said:

I am really proud that the festival, it has been such a success. It is a joy to work with such a talented group of drama teachers across the city and to see the efforts of hundreds of students put the work of Shakespeare on the stage.

The Shakespeare festival for 2020 will be going ahead virtually and this year, during lockdown, some of the teachers got together to put themselves in the spotlight by performing a rehearsed reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

It was such fun to do, at times it was more like ‘A Comedy of Errors’ than ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, but that’s all part of the process of rehearsing and of creating theatre.

The recording will be put out virtually in the week Commencing 9th November 2020 as part of the festival and hopefully will bring a smile to all. Here’s a sneak preview of one of the outtakes: