Camden Fringe: Bringing Shakespeare’s Fairy Queen into 2026

Nia Gwynne and Dictynna Hood on Titania at the Old Red Lion: part of Shakefest and Camden Fringe

Four hundred years after the events of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, what became of the fairy queen? That’s the question at the heart of Titania, a new one-woman show written by Dictynna Hood and performed by Nia Gwynne, playing the Old Red Lion for two nights only as part of this year’s Shakefest and Camden Fringe.

Hood is returning to theatre after a career as an award-winning filmmaker (Wreckers, Us Among the Stones), and wrote the piece specifically for Gwynne, whose theatre credits include Goneril, Tamora and Doll Tearsheet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, alongside film and television work including Pride and Darkest Hour. In the show, Titania has fallen into our world: sweeping theatres, living off scraps, watching, and holding on to something she can’t easily give back. Described as part confessional, part spell and part stand-up, it moves between comedy and grief as it asks what happens when the forests thin, the seasons falter, and the magic starts to run out.

Ahead of the run, Nia Gwynne and Dictynna Hood answered a few questions for Red Bus Londinium.

Red Bus: Taking an iconic character like Titania four centuries past A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fantastic premise. What was the initial spark or conversation that brought her into our modern world of eco-grief and digital isolation?

Nia Gwynne: Dictynna was interested in writing something from Titania’s point of view, I’d never played her and wanted the challenge. Dictynna was immersed in the Cornish landscape as she wrote it and so our telling is immersed and enveloped in the natural world just like Shakespeare’s version… although of course Titania is seeing a very different natural world to the one Shakespeare saw 400 years ago… we wondered how does that affect and impact her story?

Dictynna Hood: I have been thinking about bringing Titania into the modern world for quite a while – then was in Cornwall for some months, where the mystical is still so present in the landscape. I have known Nia for a while and been watching her in her work at the RSC, knowing she can play characters of depth, passion, poetry and humour. I asked her if she wanted to play the fairy queen and then wrote the show with her in mind.

Titania Old Red Lion Camden Fringe, dress rehearsal picture

Red Bus: You both have extensive experience across classical theatre, film, and television. How does working in an intimate fringe setting like the Old Red Lion change your creative approach for this piece?

Dictynna Hood: We decided very early on that the show is all about contact with the audience. The audience is the second player in the show. It all hinges on their response, so from that angle the more intimate the venue the more exciting the piece becomes. We also knew that we could not be dragging sets and props from venue to venue on tour, so the props are minimal (though still too heavy!)

Nia Gwynne: We’re both storytellers. My job as an actor is to tell the story and take the audience with me to the best of my abilities. This piece is direct address, Titania tells her story directly to the audience and so it has an intimacy written into it, despite exploring some huge themes.

Red Bus: The show is described as part confessional, part spell, and part stand-up. How did you work together to balance the comedy with the heavier themes of loss and survival?

Nia Gwynne: You have to try and make sure you’re taking the audience with you, you have to let them in, give them permission to listen, let them know they’re in safe hands. Tonally the piece shifts from laughter to grief to joy at many points but hopefully we’ve made sure that the audience feel like they’re being guided and looked after. It’s about gaining their trust.

Dictynna Hood: The show is quite a rollercoaster in terms of tone; I have been very excited working with Nia on how to move from one ‘chapter’ to another. We have found audiences really responsive to the different moments. From the writing point of view the themes are interwoven throughout so there is a kind of logic and wholeness even with the switches of tone.

Red Bus: What has been the most exciting or surprising part of taking Shakespeare’s Fairy Queen and grounding her in modern reality?

Nia Gwynne: For me as an actor the most surprising and exciting thing has been how enjoyable the direct address element of the piece has been… I was dreading it but I love that contact with the audience.

Dictynna Hood: Seeing the audience response has been really thrilling. Also the work leading up to the show, exploring a new backstory for the fairy queen and unpicking what might have happened to her together. Also working with an actress who has so much depth and understanding and bringing that together with a modern text.

Red Bus: In one sentence, why should London theatregoers head to the Old Red Lion on the 10th or 11th of August?

Nia Gwynne: What does a Queen do if her world has disappeared? Heroine or villain? You decide.

Dictynna Hood: The play’s themes are urgent but it is a summer dream after all.

Titania plays the Old Red Lion Pub & Playhouse, Angel, on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th August at 7.30pm. Running time is approximately 75 minutes with no interval. Tickets are £16, with a concession price of £13, available via lineupnow.com.

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