Have you ever wondered how A Midsummer Night’s Dream would play out if, instead of fairies, it was a squad of well-meaning yet incompetent aliens meddling in the hopeless love square ensnaring four adolescents? And what if these aliens had been downloaded into the bodies of a head teacher and his deputy head, who were using a pioneering new app to straighten out the love lives of their pupils?

Well luckily for you, you don’t have to stress about this classic conundrum anymore; the students, staff and friends of Graveney School have thought it all through, and spent the last two years crafting this exciting new film to share their conclusions!

Though the level of professionalism achieved by the editing and special effects of 7 Hours On Earth is truly commendable for an amateur production, the charm of this film lies in its authenticity and originality – a group of kids wiping the dust off a classic Shakespeare play and spicing it up with a little sci-fi. The enduring appeal of Shakespeare’s oeuvre is often cited as its intense relatability, as its themes of love, jealousy and weird shit happening resound throughout the centuries, and 7 Hours On Earth truly deserves its place in that great canon. It truly captures the feeling of being young, bombarded with hormones and insecurities, and gripped by the inexplicable feeling that the powers-that-be are working against you.

Through the lens of incorporeal aliens suddenly burdened with flesh, the film explores human nature in a profound way which is enhanced, rather than diminished, by slap-stick fart humour. Philosophical musings on the relationship between our minds and bodies is not what one would expect from a comedy of errors and aliens. Indeed, this modern interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to focus more on the course of self -love never running smoothly, which is arguably a more constructive message for the teens of the second Elizabethan age, who are no longer expected to marry at fourteen and thus have longer to decide who they are and who they want to become. Admittedly, not all themes are addressed so skilfully; any work that finds humour in the use of love potions (which remove the agency of the subject and make informed consent impossible) runs the risk of making fun of sexual assault. As such the scenes between Hugh Jass and Veronika, where she basically forces herself upon him, are painful to watch. However, as love potions are the hinges of the play, it is admittedly difficult to see how it could have been avoided.

Verdict: Though 7 Hours On Earth strays wildly from the script of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the zing of modernity does not impede its status as a worthy spiritual successor, with the heart and wit to impress the Bard himself. 7/10

Sophie Simpson