Shakespeare on the streets (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Shakespeare on the streets

1:50pm Thursday 22nd July 2010 in

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A PROJECT to bring Shakespeare to Basingstoke’s communities is taking to the streets on Saturday.

Leigh Johnstone, a young director, actor and playwright, launched a multi-cultural drama project called Much Ado About Basingstoke earlier this year with Basingstoke-based Fluid Motion Theatre Company as a way of bringing the town’s ethnic minorities together.

On July 24, a troupe of actors, including Johnstone, will be roaming the streets of Basingstoke town centre, including Wote Street, London Street, Winchester Street and Market Place, delivering five-minute monologues, performing two-person scenes and interacting with members of the public and encouraging them to get involved.

Johnstone, 21, who is co-artistic director of the theatre company, said: “These performances are not elaborate shows, but down-to-earth intimate performances. The public, after watching, will then have the opportunity to have a go, and the actors will talk to them about what they saw.”

The student, who is studying drama at The University of Winchester, added: “I have Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” speech, which I will perform several times throughout the day.”

The Much Ado project aims to make Shakespeare’s text contemporary and will look at identity and what it means to be of an ethnic minority today in the UK.

Johnstone hopes the scheme will be a long-running project and coincide with The World Shakespeare Festival in 2012.

The thespians will be in action between 10am and 2pm and will be clutching signs that say “Have a go at Shakespeare”.

Anyone interested in Much Ado About Basingstoke can write to fluidmotion theatre@google mail.com or call 07935 680209.