This riotously funny production will appear at Cessnock Performing Arts Centre on Thursday, October 26.

The Popular Mechanicals are Shakespeare’s greatest clowns – the endearingly amateur acting ensemble led by Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Here, they take centre-stage in a wild imagining of what might have happened off-stage during the Bard’s most-loved comedy.

Perhaps the most famous group of amateur thespians of all time, the cast of the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe, bumble their way through rehearsals surviving the misadventures brought on by their own sheer idiocy.

The result is a lewd, rude and ingenious mix of Shakespearean verse, songs and dance – an anarchic and thrillingly unhinged carnival that revels in its own theatricality.

Using snippets of the existing text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a gloriously cod version of Shakespearean English, the play exalts in its own roughness, extravagance of expression and frequent obscenity – in the nicest possible way.

First directed by Geoffrey Rush in 1987, The Popular Mechanicals holds a special place in the Australian comedic canon and is ripe for revival with a cast of our best theatrical clowns, led by the inimitable Amber McMahon and directed by former Sydney Theatre Company resident director Sarah Giles.

It is a perfect end-of year romp that promises to lift the roof in the silliest ways imaginable.

The show will start at 8pm and tickets are available from the CPAC box office on 4993 4266 or online at www.cessnockperformingartscentre.com.au.