'Our show combines pro-wrestling with Shakespeare'
BBCPerformers have been rehearsing for a show which combines William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with wrestling.
Bardcore – Midsummer Mayhem, despite its "wacky" concept, is surprisingly true to its Shakespearean roots, its organisers say.
"Back in Shakespeare's day, his theatre was very similar to what it's like to go to a wrestling match today... everybody picking a side, rooting for the hero, booing the villains," said Ben Spiller, co-director of Bardcore.
They said the one-time event would be an "experiment" in trying out ideas, because he had not taken part in anything similar before.
Ben added it would appeal to wrestling fans who are uncertain about Shakespeare, and Shakespeare fans who are uncertain about wrestling.
The performance will be hosted at The Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham on Saturday.
It will adapt The Bard's comedy, which sees four lovers flee the court of Athens and stumble into an enchanted forest.
The show will include professional actors and professional wrestlers, and the script has been written to combine the "two worlds".
There will also be integrated British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation for the audience, and some of the actors involved in the production are deaf.
"We want to make sure that the audience can understand what's going on," says Caroline Parker, who is deaf.
She will play Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and is a professional actress by trade.
However, Caroline does not have a wrestling background.
She said: "I pretend to be good [at wrestling in the show], with a smidgen of magic.
"It's just a different way of telling the story, you could tell the story with words, with song, paintings, sculptures, and with sport as well. So it all fits in well I think."
The actors have been cast by 1623 Theatre Company, while the wrestlers have been cast by Wrestling Resurgence.
Dereiss Gordon, a professional wrestler, will play Lysander. He says he has been "counting down the days" until he can perform.
"I love everything about wrestling, I love the big characters, I love the athleticism, I love the drama... I love how it's allowed me to meet new people from different backgrounds," he said.
Dereiss said the show would be "special", because it combined what he loved with Shakespearean "drama, energy, and enthusiasm".
Prof Andy Kesson, from the University of Roehampton, London, researches the relationship between modern performance and history.
"It doesn't feel like we're bringing wrestling and Shakespeare together, but they were together all along, and we're now learning what that looks like," he said.
Prof Kesson said his involvement had grown out of a project looking into animal fighting inside Shakespeare's theatres, and he needed to discover what it meant to fight for entertainment.
"Very often when we study Shakespeare at school, or when actors spend time with the scripts, that kind of text-driven approach is all about fine-tuning words.
"But once we start working with the body, we get comedy, we get pathos, we get storytelling all at once... the starting point is the human body and what it can do."
Follow BBC Nottingham on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.