There’s stormy weather ahead at St. George’s Hall as Chalice Media Limited presents The Tempest at St. George’s Hall on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th June.

This will be the second in the series of classic Shakespeare plays to be adapted and staged by the company at St George’s Hall as part of the ‘Where There’s a Will…’ Shakespeare Season launched to mark the 400th Anniversary of the Bard’s death.

The season features four of The Bard’s most popular plays, re-invented and adapted with a contemporary creative flair that has become the signature touch of Chalice Media’s reworking of the Bard’s great works. Each of the play’s will be staged in the stunning Concert Room at the iconic venue.

The series was launched in April with a highly successful performance of Macbeth and now fans of The Bard can look forward to The Tempest, a masterpiece which is believed by many scholars to be the last play written solely by William Shakespeare.

But, this is not The Tempest as audiences may have known it – with not a cod-piece or pantaloon in sight! – welcome to Chalice Media’s Steampunk adaptation of William Shakespeare’s famous tragi-comedy; a production which will turn your bio-mechanical world inside out!

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science-fiction, which has really embedded itself in mainstream fiction, fashion and pop culture in recent years.

Laura Harris, director of Chalice Media Limited, explained: “Characters of steampunk creation often exist in alternate worlds that utilise steam-powered machinery in a modern-day or even futuristic context. This concept perfectly fitted what I wanted to do in terms of adapting and revitalising The Tempest.

It provided the ideal platform for melding the strange fantasy island on which the action of Shakespeare’s fantastic tragi-comedy takes place with the heavily steam-powered and industrialised look that our designer has managed to capture so well.

As ever, we are still using the original language and I think that’s important. We hope to bring something new to this play, to breathe new life into the characters; but the words should always – and I think must always – belong to Shakespeare. In this important anniversary year, we look forward to introducing new audiences to a playwright in whom we hope they will find a friend for life!”

Some of Laura’s adaptations include altering the gender of several characters, which has created an interesting mother/daughter relationship between Prospera (not Prospero) and Miranda and exchanging the wrecked sailing ship for a suitably steampunk Airship. Caliban is now a biomechanical creature, part-man and part-machine and even the sprite, Ariel, appears to be touched and ruled by this oddly industrialised environment… as though even nature itself is no longer natural.

This inspired adaptation, featuring original music composed by Laura Harris and Ben Murray especially for this production will run straight through from start to finish without an interval. The production will run to around 90 minutes.

Laura added: “The Tempest isn’t necessarily a long play in its original form and our adaptation has been abridged specifically to create a sense of the short amount of time that King Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian and the rest of the gang spend on the island.

A time which – after 15 years of near solitude and life-altering exile – seems almost too short as Prospera finds herself free-falling steadily towards the ultimate decision; should she abandon her magic and return to Milan or remain on the island, with ‘spirits to command’? Should she take revenge on those who did her and her daughter wrong? We hope you will join us for this magical journey into a steam-fuelled alternate reality and alternate take on one of the Bard’s finest stage-plays.”

The Tempest will be followed by Romeo And Juliet on 2nd and 3rd July and Much Ado About Nothing on 3rd to 5th August). Tickets are now on sale from Ticketquarter.

Tickets are priced at £14. Other tickets prices are available from the Ticketquarter.

General tickets can be purchased at www.ticketquarter.co.uk or by telephone 0844 800 0410.