Overview

Between June and November 1902, the year of the Coronation of Edward VII, Bellingford Amateur Dramaticks Society is rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream. It has the usual range of different personalities - stalwart group members, young lads about town, daughters of local businessmen and also the wealthy diamond-trade man, a devotee of Henry Irving, who is underwriting the production. This man's murder, set against Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, the new craze of ping-pong and the invention of finger-printing broadens the plot and develops the characters. Commissioned to commemorate Sutton Amateur Dramatic Club centenary in 2002.