MISCHIEVOUS fairies will take over the Empire next month when a child-friendly version of A Midsummer Night's Dream visits the Liverpool theatre.

Touring company Shakespeare 4 Kidz has given the comedy a magical transformation into a musical version, launched last September.

Featuring songs, dances and spellbinding effects, the show retains the Bard's story of a Duke marrying his Amazonian queen and two pairs of lovers eloping into the woods where the audience finds feuding fairies and naughty sprite Puck, played by Noel Andrew Harron.

“Every S4K show uses the whole Shakespearean plot, slotting the most famous original lines into modern language so that everyone – even the youngest primary school children – can understand,” says a theatre company spokesman. The script flows so easily that most people don’t realise approximately 20% of it is in Shakespeare’s own words.”

The Dream is one of six S4K titles, following on from the 2009/10 national and international tour of Macbeth.

Dame Helen Mirren described The Dream as “the Avatar of Shakespeare, with something to be enjoyed by all age groups, a great message and lots of fun and fantasy".

THE Dream will be at the Liverpool Empire on Monday February 28, playing at 10.30am and 1.30pm.