Chichester’s Festival 2026 finale takes audiences to the exuberant, enchanted world of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, riotously transposed to 1990s Sussex where traditional values are going head-to-head with the party to end all parties. Comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa plays Bottom

It’s 1994 in Chichester, and Tory MP Theseus is riding high after shutting down free raves across the county, aided by local Chief Constable Egeus. Four spirited but unhappy young lovers rebel against their stuffy elders’ rules and take off to the South Downs.

Over the fields in Worthing, bohemian aristo-landowners Oberon and Titania are organising an illicit rave with naughty fixer Puck – when they aren’t arguing over the affections of The Changeling, a DJ party boy.

Meanwhile, the local Young Conservatives are busy rehearsing a play for Theseus’s forthcoming wedding, with the slightly over-enthusiastic support of new Club member, Bottom.

As night falls, psychedelic potions lead to startling transformations in the heady haze of freedom and desire. In the South Downs, magic is real. Anything can happen.

Artistic Director Justin Audibert follows his acclaimed Hamlet and hugely popular Festival Theatre production of Redlands, co-directing with Hannah Joss (Choir), in a production which celebrates Shakespeare’s language while spinning the world of Elizabethan players into full-colour living memory.

Description supplied by the event organiser.