Shakespeare in Dublin is a series of three short radio plays which were written in 2016 and broadcast on Near FM Community Radio in 2017/18 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Based on three of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, King Lear, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the series is a re-imagining of each of the plays in contemporary Dublin. While the settings are clearly different, each play is faithful to the main characters, plot and central themes of the play on which it is based, as much as is possible in twenty minutes.

The plays were written by experienced, award-winning, local Dublin playwrights in conjunction with English teachers. Larry (based on King Lear) and McBen (based on Macbeth) are intended for TY or Leaving Cert students while The Ghosts of Priory Hall (based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is intended for a Junior Cycle or TY group. However, all plays are suitable for any English classroom depending on the age and stage of the learners.

he educational component includes a series of worksheets to accompany the finished radio programmes and these materials can be downloaded from near.ie/education

Programme two in the series, The Ghosts of Priory Hall, written by Frank O’Connor and adapted from the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Synopsis:

The ghosts of the ghost estates in Clongriffin (Including Priory Hall, the famous estate that residents had to leave) live in an alternative world parallel with our own. O’Brien owns a ghost chipper and is involved in a custody battle with his wife over a child. He recruits his assistant Packy to hypnotise his wife with magic spice bag dust and cause her to fall in love with the first thing she sees. The plan goes wrong in the confusion of a midsummer night, however, and all the wrong ghosts end up falling in love with each other. It is up to Pack and O’Brien to fix things and restore order before sunrise.

Music:
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:27 — 78.8MB)

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