大象传媒

Certainly not the first comedian to show his Bottom, the erstwhile Little Britain writer and performer Matt Lucas will be part of an all-star cast in Russell T. Davies' upcoming 大象传媒 One adaptation of Dream. Lucas will be following in his writing partner David Walliams' Bottom-shaped footsteps and playing opposite Maxine Peake as Titania, and alongside John Hannah, Elaine Paige and Bernard Cribbins, as part of the 大象传媒's 2016 Shakespeare celebrations.

Screened on Midsummer's Day, 1964, this ITV adaptation pulled in 3.8 million viewers - the Bard's greatest television audience to that date. Transmitted to honour 400 years since Shakespeare's birth and directed by Joan Kemp-Welch, the production deliberately sought to appeal to a wide audience, casting comics and musical theatre actors alongside more traditional thespians like Patrick Allen and Peter Wyngarde.

Philip Purser, The Sunday Telegraph's television critic from 1961-87, recounts a wonderful anecdote concerning Benny Hill's performance as Bottom.

"I found Joan Kemp-Welch’s production good, with its cobwebby forest setting, Mendelssohn’s music and a superb, Lucifer-like Oberon from Peter Wyngarde. And, yes, Benny Hill did make the most of his part. But to give him sole billing above the title while ignoring the gods and lordly mortals of the cast was surely putting the cart before the horse? As I typed this I suddenly spotted, and substituted, an alternative version – it would be putting the arse before the court. They liked it in Arts and Features, but had to clear such a rude word with the paper’s founding editor, the donnish ex-schoolmaster Donald McLachlan. He pronounced it acceptable as a play on words. A letter from Michael Flanders, who with Donald Swann formed a celebrated comedy act, was printed the next week. Did my jest, he wondered, reflect my sincere opinion – or was I guilty of putting the coarse before the art?"

David Walliams beat his Little Britain co-star in the race to Bottom by three years, starring in a psychedelic, 60s-soaked production at London's Noel Coward theatre. Playing opposite Sheridan Smith as Titania, Walliams proved popular with both critics and the public, winning a WhatsOnStage award for Best Supporting Actor.

Writing in The Guardian, Michael Billington was impressed with Walliams' performance: “Above all, Walliams has the knack of instinctively connecting with an audience, whether it be in his awed recollection of his donkey's tackle or in his funny play-within-the-play Pyramus who takes the stage with enamelled self-assurance and who is hilariously reluctant to depart.” Tim Walker, writing in the Telegraph, went one step further, praising both lead performances but ultimately concluding, "I felt, however, for Miss Smith in her scenes with Walliams, as I found it impossible to take my eyes off him, even if tears of laughter occasionally obscured the view."

Michael Hoffman directed this Hollywood version of Dream, setting the action in 1890s Tuscany. The cast is jam-packed with A-list stars, including Stanley Tucci as Puck, Christian Bale in a pre-Batman incarnation as Demetrius, and Rupert Everett and Michelle Pfeiffer as quarrelling fairies Oberon and Titania.

Much of the praise for the film revolved around Kline's Bottom. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Stack wrote:

"Purists will quibble, but William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a playful, sexy piece of work - just what the Bard might have conjured up for a movie adaptation of his beloved spring-fever comedy. The film is over the top - and willfully so ... As might be expected, Kevin Kline steals the show with his hearty gifts for comedy ... Kline, a Shakespearean veteran, has that flourish, that golden touch. In his glorious way of overdoing it - turning the very notion of acting into farce - he embodies a supreme comic madness that is audacious yet embracing ..."

However, Janet Maslin in the New York Times was more acid-tongued: “Not even Michelle Pfeiffer's commanding loveliness as the fairy queen Titania, and her ability to speak of such things as 'my bower' with perfect ease, can offset the decision to have the actors grapple awkwardly with bicycles.”

In this 1981 大象传媒 Television Shakespeare adaptation, described as "a dark-hued, somewhat claustrophobic and vaguely menacing production", Brian Glover got his Bottom out with Helen Mirren as the besotted Titania. Notable for being the only former wrestler on this list, Glover sported a luxurious mane of donkey hair, a change both from his usual bald pate and his string of roles playing tough guys and criminals.

Rogers played Bottom no less than three times: in a 1958 大象传媒 Sunday night theatre adaptation (also featuring Peter Sallis as Snug), at the Royal Shakespeare Company under the direction of Peter Hall, and in the subsequent big screen adaptation in 1968 - the first live-action, colour version of the play committed to celluloid. Another all-star lineup surrounded Rogers, including Judi Dench as Titania (scandalously scantily clad and covered in green body paint), Diana Rigg as Helena, Helen Mirren as Hermia and Ian Holm as Puck.

Rogers' Bottom came in for particular praise for his decision to play the part completely straight, in contrast to the usual 'gurning buffoon', though the film as a whole was not so well-received; writing in The Spectator in 1969, Penelope Houston noted that "...Mr Hall's halfway house between screen and stage looks almost as uncomfortable a perch as the curious grave-like earthwork in which Judi Dench's Titania has her sleeping-quarters."

In one of his first big breaks at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Griffiths was cast as Bottom - an early showcase of his comic abilities. A member of the audience recalled: “Griffiths eschewed the traditional histrionics of Bottom's enthusiasm and underplayed if anything. His voice was perfectly modulated, rarely rising above the conversational, and his gestures were neat, precise and measured. The humour was of the driest variety, not the usual knockabout, and left an indelible impression. The audience was hooked, intrigued by what he would do next and whether he could sustain this cool style for the entire performance. He could and did. You felt that he was playing just to you rather than a vast auditorium.”

Howerd was part of an Old Vic production of Dream, though 大象传媒 viewers were also offered a glimpse of his Bottom (ooh) when an extract from the production was broadcast. While known for his comedy, Howerd had originally wanted to be an actor but failed his audition at RADA. As reported in the Daily Mail, even when he landed his Shakespearean role in Dream, "with typical coarseness, he always called it the Tit and Bum Show, because the leading characters were Titania and Bottom."

The Royal Shakespeare Company is currently touring its latest production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a cast of 18 professional actors - who will be joined by 14 different bands of amateur Rude Mechanicals at different locations around the UK. The 84 amateur performers playing the Mechanicals have been put through their paces, taking part in workshops and tasks set by the RSC team in preparation for stepping out on stage, and include part-time actors as diverse as a funeral director from Kidderminster, a pub landlord from County Durham, and a driver from London.

Of course, these productions wouldn't be complete without a star turn from 14 of Britain's Best Bottoms...