Jonathon Levers, who played Cobweb in the recent sell-out Midsummer Magic at Belper River Gardens, offers an insight into being an associate trainee with 1623.

Before we started rehearsing Midsummer Magic (a new play inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream), the company visited the beautiful Belper River Gardens and what an amazing place to hold a promenade performance! It was really helpful to visit the venue before starting work on the play so that we could all visualise where each scene was going to take place. It was a sunny afternoon when we visited Belper and I only hoped that the weather would be kind to us when we returned to the park several weeks later to perform.

The rehearsal process took place at the Waterfall Bar and Café, opposite the railway station in Derby. The rehearsal space was a blank canvas on which we had to paint the picture of this show. The fundamental colours came from the fairies themselves: Master Peaseblossom, Mistress Moth, Master Cobweb and Mistress Mustardseed.

These naughty little creatures, except for Peaseblossom, who had no idea of what was going on, found a flower hit by Cupid's arrow and decided that it would be a good prank to rub it in the eye of Titania the fairy queen so that she would wake 'when something foul is near' and fall in love with it. 'Something foul' turned out to be an unsuspecting man called Nick Bottom who the fairies had turned into a donkey.

Mustardseed instigated this plot and my alter ego, Cobweb, thought that it was nothing more than a simple prank. Cobweb agreed to fetch the magical flower to please Mustardseed; after all he was the meanest of fairies who 'misleads night wonderers, laughing at their harm', so he really had to live up to his reputation.

As the rehearsals went on, the characters and their relationships came through from the actors’ imaginations and the text itself, which was gifted to us by Shakespeare with edits by Ben Spiller, our director.

From the offset, we already had ideas as to what these characters would be like. Peaseblossom (Oliver Tunstall) became a loyal servant to Titania. He loved and cared for her more than all the other fairies. Mustardseed (Grace Scott) developed into a very mischievous fairy who craved some kind of payback on Titania who forced her fairies to complete an extraordinarily unfair number of tasks. Moth (Rebecca Sowter), being blind and seeking comfort in her close friend Mustardseed was all in too and Cobweb, who enjoyed mischievous pranks, was only too willing to get involved; but he soon felt that it got a little out of hand.

Now, for me, playing Cobweb was a completely new experience as I hadn't played a character like him before. Recent roles such as Romeo, Rosencrantz (in Hamlet) and Malcolm (in Macbeth) were nothing like the dirty, earthy, character with a deep gravelly voice that I had pictured my Cobweb to be.

Of course I found this a challenge to begin with but, like every challenge, you begin to enjoy it once you've found your stride. As soon as I ‘let rip’ with some of the most absurd and quite bonkers gestures and voices, I found a Cobweb that fitted the bill.

Through the rehearsal process, I was amazed at how brilliant the cast was and how everything was shaping up. And the new arrival of Rebecca Sowter, who slotted right into the 1623 groove, was right up to scratch with the language and this was her first Shakespearean performance! Suddenly, this blank canvas was now oozing with life and colour. The brighter and finer shades were added and the brilliant comical duo of Nathan Masterson (Nick Bottom) and Amy Scott (Titania) gave this painting its story of love, passion and trickery; now to transport - or transplant - all of this to Belper River Gardens!

We arrived at the River Gardens at midday on 23 June and I distinctly remember how warm it was. Consequently, the dress run was a minor battle for all the cast. However, all came through the dress feeling very confident about the production with some minor changes, which included relocating some sequences.

Although this wasn’t my first promenade performance, it was my first in an outside venue and my voice seemed lost, gobbled up by the simmering traffic. The air seemed to carry the voice away. I turned to the help of Ben and Nathan, who both told me to breathe low, use the vowels to project the voice and make sure to hit the consonants at the ends of words. Job done! However, nothing prepared us for some of the vocal obstacles during one or two of the performances. One disruptive sound that I distinctly recall is the rotating blades of a search helicopter about 100 feet above the bandstand. Amy dealt with the thundering noises of the helicopter rather spectacularly. She showed true professionalism and patience.

There were so many beautiful scenes in Midsummer Magic and such raw comedic value, which was much-loved by the audience, that it is extremely difficult for me to choose my favourite moment in the production. However, the little snippet of the piece that I thoroughly enjoyed every night was not from the cast but from the reaction of the audience.

During the performance the fairies - led by Mustardseed - decided to find a human in the audience to turn into a donkey for Titania to fall in love with. Unbeknown to the audience, the person we chose each night was our very own Nathan Masterson. We blindfolded him and marched him to the bandstand, followed by the rest of the audience who articulated their concern and relief with utterances such as 'poor man' and 'I'm glad they didn't pick me'. 

Once at the bandstand, we chose another member of the audience to pin the tail on the donkey and every night someone was willing to perform the deed, knowing that they could be in a worse position, such as the poor captured soul in the bandstand being turned into an ass. As soon as the blindfold was removed and Nathan uttered a few word of his speech, members of the audience looked rather bemused, some laughed with realisation that Nathan was an actor and some mouthed a phrase of total shock.

The reaction and realisation that they were tricked was a sight I will never forget. On the second night, the girl who I had chosen to pin the tail on the donkey was so shocked and embarrassed that she raised her right hand to cover her mouth and hid behind her friend. Cobweb’s deep, malevolent laugh only made things worse for the poor girl.

Midsummer Magic was a brilliant experience for a young actor such as myself and being an associate trainee with 1623 is rewarding because it gives me the chance to work with professionals, under the guidance of artistic director Ben Spiller, on a regular basis. I never imagined that I would fall in love with the works of Shakespeare but it's happened because of working with the language practically and playing such amazing characters with such amazing people around me.

Please visit Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site for a review of Midsummer Magic by Adrian Farmer.